President Vladimir Putin is still likely to host the World Cup in 2018 despite an FBI investigation into Russia’s winning bid but his hopes of staging a tournament that impresses his critics are fading.
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(RFE/RL – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW, May 25, 2015) A prominent member of parliament for the ruling United Russia party has drafted a bill to allow enterprises to employ thousands of convicts as a cheap workforce to build infrastructure for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The legal amendments reported on May 25 in leading business daily Kommersant create a mechanism […]
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Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man, has financed the success of Shakhtar Donetsk FC. But war in the Donbas means that the club is now playing in Lviv, 1200 kilometres away from its home in Donetsk. Can it survive? (opendemocracy.net – Manuel Veth – March 11, 2015) Manuel Veth is a history PhD candidate at King’s College London, researching the economics […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Khrennikov – November 20, 2014) It’s a hot day in Krasnodar, deep in southern Russia. The action is hot on the soccer field, too. Ari, the local club’s Brazilian striker, takes a pass from the left flank and scores a beautiful goal. Ari (full name Ariclenes da Silva Ferreira) then wheels away in celebration to […]
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[“Domestic focus sinks Russia, rings alarms for 2018 World Cup” – Reuters – 6.27.14] Reuters covers Russia’s soccer (football) woes. Even as Russia is slated to host the World Cup in 2018, Russian soccer reportedly is not poised to excel. Ironically, the situation is attributed, in part, to high salaries. The massive wages paid by Russia’s domestic clubs mean good […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber – June 11, 2014) As the World Cup kicks off on Thursday, Russian soccer circles have tempered their expectations for Team Russia, juggling realistic goals with the farfetched hope that their team will capture the globe’s most prized championship. Leading U.K. bookmaker William Hill had set Russia’s odds of winning the tournament at […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Khrennikov – November 29, 2013) Sergey Galitskiy took less than two decades to build OAO Magnit (MGNT) from scratch into Russia’s retail leader. With the wealth that’s brought him, the billionaire is training local kids to challenge the country’s soccer elite. Galitskiy, 46, created FC Krasnodar in 2008 and since then has spent more than […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Lena Smirnova – February 1, 2013) When the Baltimore Ravens square off against the San Francisco 49ers at Sunday’s Super Bowl, the first question on the minds of American football fans in Moscow will be which team will emerge as the national champion. A close second: where to go to watch the game in a […]
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