FIFA World Cup 2018: President Vladimir Putin promises Russia will 'exert every effort' to prepare for event

Moscow: President Vladimir Putin has promised that Russia will do everything possible to prepare in an efficient and timely manner for hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup. “Everything is going on schedule, everything is financed properly,” Putin said on Saturday at a meeting with world football’s governing body FIFA President Gianni Infantino, reports Tass news agency. [caption id=“attachment_1790213” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Russian president Vladimir Putin. AP[/caption] “Russia will exert every effort to fulfil everything in an efficient and timely manner,” he added. “I am hopeful that your specialists who oversee the work will go on with it and we together will carry preparations for the World Cup through to the expected finish.” Prior to the meeting, Putin and Infantino inspected the renovated Luzhniki stadium and watched young footballers’ training sessions. The Russian President drew the FIFA head’s attention to how Russian “young athletes and would-be champions” perceive the preparations for the World Cup. “You were absolutely right saying that the Cup has some magic significance, some magic capacity,” Putin told Infantino. The matches of the 2018 World Cup will be held between 14 June and 15 July at 12 stadiums located in 11 cities across Russia. Two of the stadiums are located in Moscow. The country has selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup — they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.