POSTED: Wednesday August 18th 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FIFA INSPECTION DELEGATION MEETS TATARSTAN PRESIDENT IN KAZAN, INAUGURATES THREE TRAINING CENTRES

Bid for the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup™ - Visit of the FIFA Inspection Group, 16 to 19 August 2010

Kazan, 18 August 2010 - Kazan, home to current league champions Rubin, treated the FIFA Inspection Delegation to several highlights on their tour to assess Russia's bid for the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup™.
The President of the Republic of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, personally welcomed the FIFA Inspection Delegation at the airport and accompanied the FIFA experts throughout the day on their visit to Kazan, which also included a meeting at Kazan Kremlin. Minnikhanov, an Honoured Master of Sports, emphasised how keen the city of Kazan, a football hotbed, was to host matches of a future FIFA World Cup™ (cf. statement http://president.tatar.ru/eng/news/view/85476).

As part of their activities, the inspection group had been invited to attend at the Olymp Training Centre an inauguration ceremony for three new football training centres that are part of the comprehensive range of football development activities in Tatarstan. FIFA delegation head Harold Mayne-Nicholls was asked to perform a symbolic kick-off as part of the ceremony attended by some 2,000 spectators and which involved several hundred girls and boys displaying their dancing and football skills.

Earlier that day, the FIFA Inspection Delegation had flown from Moscow to the Tatar capital. Following a presentation of the upgrade project for Kazan International Airport, the group visited the site of the new stadium that will be the central facility of the 2013 Universiade Games and the future home ground of Rubin Kazan. The new football-only stadium will be finished in 2013 and have a gross capacity of 45,105 spectators. For the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup™ the stadium would be the stage for both group matches and either round of 16 or quarter-final matches.

The FIFA experts were given detailed input on the key facilities Kazan has to offer to organise matches of the FIFA World Cup™ as part of its host city presentation at the Kazan City Hall. They were also treated to a tour of the Kazan Kremlin, named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.

Kazan is a historic and cultural centre in the middle Volga River Basin region, with a population of 1.1 million inhabitants. Lying at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanska rivers, it is part of the proposed Volga cluster for the FIFA World Cup™ and may call itself "Russia's Third Capital" after Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Later on the same day, the FIFA delegation flew to Sochi, fourth and last Host City to be visited on this tour. The group will then return to Moscow on Thursday, 19 August, for a concluding media briefing at Domodedovo airport from 12.20 - 12.35 (cf. media information of 12 August) before departing for Zurich.

Photo gallery of visit to Kazan at: http://president.tatar.ru/eng/photo/show/20102

For more information:
Russia Bid Committee for the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup™
Julia Cooper, Communications Manager
Phone:  +7 495 660 49 80 /Mail: mail@russia2018-2022.com

Andreas Herren, International Media Coordinator
Mobile:  +41 (79) 799 0046 / Mail: media@russia2018-2022.co

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Keywords · Russia 2018 2022 · Alexey Sorokin · FIFA World Cup · Rustam Minnikhanov · Harold Mayne-Nicholls

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Name: Julia Cooper
Organization: Russia Bid Committee for the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup™
Email:
Phone: +7 495 660 49 80
URL: http://www.russia2018-2022.com

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