14 prospective host cities with a total of 15 stadiums will be proposed by the Russian Football Union (RFU) to FIFA in their bid for the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup™.

The bid will foresee a multi-cluster concept with a cluster in the north, centered on St. Petersburg, a central cluster, centered on Moscow, a southern cluster, centered on Sochi, and the Volga river cluster, which represents cities situated on or around this beautiful natural attraction. Beyond the Ural mountains, Yekaterinburg completes the selection of host cities, which are:

Northern Cluster:           
St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad

Central Cluster:           
Moscow, Podolsk

Southern Cluster:           
Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Sochi

Volga Cluster:                       
Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Samara, Volgograd, Saransk

East of Ural:                       
Yekaterinburg

Alexey Sorokin, CEO of the Russian Football Union and of the Bid Committee, commented: "FIFA requirements state that the stadiums (and the host cities) are to be spread across the bidding country in a reasonable manner with the purpose to represent that the competition is considered a nationwide event.

"Russia is the largest country on earth, spanning 11 time zones and with an area covering 17,098,242 sq km. For a country of this size, we have a rather compact yet diverse plan with all cities being within 2.000 km of Moscow and modern transport links between each".

For more information:

Russian Football Union Media Office
Phone: +7-495-926-13-00
Fax: +7-495-926-13-05
E-mail: info@rfs.ru

International Media Coordinator
Andreas Herren
Mobile: +41 (79) 799 0046
E-mail: andreas.herren@externuscomm.ch