Russia and the 2018 FIFA World Cup

Richard Arnold, Richard Arnold

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000357639
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Russische Politik

Despite many negative expectations of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Russia delivered one of the best World Cups in living memory. This book brings together leading scholars working in Russian studies, sociology and political science to analyse the 2018 World Cup and assess its significance for sport, Russia and the world.

The book explores the connections between sport, soft power, populism, protest, and international politics, and investigates topics including security, surveillance, social media and patriotic mobilization, shining new light on key contemporary themes in the social sciences. It reflects upon the importance of sporting mega-events for public diplomacy, and considers what the 2018 World Cup can tell us about the current condition of Russian society and the Russian state.

This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in soccer, sport and society, Russia, international politics, events, or post-Soviet societies.

Chapter 1
The state of play in Russian football

Manuel Veth

In the summer of 2018, the Russian Federation hosted the FIFA World Cup. Despite a buildup that included significant controversy—ranging from allegations that the country had bought the rights to host the tournament, to stadium construction challenges, as well as hooligan problems—the tournament was a resounding success. Following the World Cup, the two top flights of Russian football, the Russian Premier Liga (RPL) and the Football National League (FNL), have experienced some growth in their average attendance. But not every World Cup city has benefitted. In Yekaterinburg, for example, the debate continues on as to who should carry the costs of refurbishing the World Cup stadium, and in Saransk, the local club Mordovia is playing in front of just a handful of fans at the brand-new Mordovia Arena. Adding to that is the fact that Russian football will be impacted by the 9 December 2019 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) ruling, banning Russia from participating at the Olympics and any World Cup for the next four years. Russia will not be impacted by this ruling summer when the Sbornaya will host European Championship games in St. Petersburg—the European football governing body UEFA is not a member of WADA—but Russia will have to play under a neutral flag at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, should they qualify. Furthermore, Russian club teams continue to struggle in European competitions—in both the 2018–2019 season and 2019–2020 season no team managed to get beyond the group stage of the UEFA Champions League and the round of 16 of the Europa League. The results in Europe have been especially worrying for Russian clubs, as it highlights that club football, despite an increase in attendance numbers, has stalled. One of the questions that will be asked in this chapter, therefore, is what sort of impact the World Cup had on international results of club teams? But also, what impact did the tournament have on the players and their market values? Two years since the World Cup has ended, the overall question is whether the World Cup has truly benefitted the game in Russia?

The stadium situation

In Yekaterinburg, the 2018 FIFA World Cup is a constant reminder that not all promises about the sustainability of the tournament have been fulfilled. The city hosted four World Cup games at the Central Stadium. The facility made headlines ahead of the World Cup for its rather unconventional architecture (Russia World Cup stadium takes novel approach to seating extension 2017). Renovated ahead of the World Cup, the original structure was partly protected as a local heritage site (Goff 2018). In order to preserve the façade, the architects then chose to build a new stadium inside the old facility. With steep stands and a higher façade that has been placed on top of the old façade, the maximum permanent capacity of the stadium could be increased to 23,000. FIFA, however, requires a minimum capacity of 35,000 seats for a stadium to host World Cup games. As a result, the façades on each end of the field have been left open to allow temporary stands to be built outside of the stadium, which enabled the Yekaterinburg Stadium to meet FIFA standards for the four games the city hosted. Following the tournament, the stands were supposed to be removed and the stadium renovation finished, providing the city’s local team Ural Yekaterinburg with a new stadium with space for 23,000 spectators (Veth 2017a). This eventual downgrading of the stadium was seen as a necessary step because Ural only averaged 8,115 spectators per game throughout the 2017–2018 season (RU1 Attendances 2017/18).

On the surface, this appeared to be a genius solution by the World Cup organizers. The Yekaterinburg Arena would host the four games and then be downgraded to a capacity that better reflected the average attendance of the local club Ural. The problem, however, is that now, two-and-a-half years after the World Cup has moved on, the temporary stands are still decorating either end of the stadium, even though the average attendance of Ural games throughout the 2018–2019 season was just 15,723 spectators (RU1 Attendances 2018/19). The original plan was to remove the stands on either end of the stadium and move them to other parts of Russia where they could be used as stadia for smaller clubs. As of December 2019, however, the stands are still in place. The major problem has been money. Neither the city of Yekaterinburg, the football club Ural, nor the provider of the stadium has felt responsible for the removal of the stands.

Yekaterinburg’s stadium is not the only arena with problems. In Saransk, local club Mordovia wrote post-World Cup headlines in national and international media, thanks to positive attendance numbers immediately following the tournament. Mordovia Saransk welcomed 26,000 spectators for their first post-World Cup game. Russia’s second division, the FNL, had impressive attendance numbers (Veth 2018) and an average attendance of around 6,000 over the first eight matchdays. That means the Russian second division currently ranks among France’s Ligue 2 (6,290 on average) (France, Ligue 2, Attendance, Home matches 2018/2019) and Italy’s Serie B (7,008 on average last season) in terms of attendance (Italy, Serie B, Attendance, Homes matches 2017/18).

In an article published by the Russian online sports portal, Championat, the question was raised whether the post-World Cup boom was a myth. Championat visited the 2018 FIFA World Cup stadium in April 2019 and found the Saransk facility mostly deserted for one of Mordovia’s home games (Eremin 2019). With ticket prices ranging from 100 to 200 roubles ($1.5–$3) prices at Mordovia’s World Cup stadium are not exorbitant. Yet there were no fans at the stadium. The entire Championat article, in fact, highlights the empty space inside the stadium. Meanwhile, a club official told the Russian sports outlet that the post-World Cup boom was mostly due to officials handing out free tickets. “No one goes when they have to pay,” an official said to Championat. The example, of Mordovia Saransk, however, is worrying. At the time, in 12th place in the FNL standings, Mordovia Saransk have first division history, but the city’s inclusion as a World Cup host raised some eyebrows. There have been arguments that Mordovia’s inclusion as a World Cup city was politically motivated and not based on probable future usage of facilities (Flint 2018).

With a population of 834,755 people, the Republic of Mordovia is a relatively small republic in which Mordvins make up about 40% of the population. Meanwhile, the city of Saransk has a population of just 300,000 and to fill the stadium regularly every tenth citizen of the city would have to show up. Furthermore, it does not help that Mordovia Saransk are more of a mid-table team in the second division rather than an RPL contender. Mordovia with its large ethnic population is one of the republics Moscow keeps an eye on when it comes to separatism. Like with the Caucasus and Tatarstan, there is a carrot-and-stick approach in Russia to keeping republics in line. In this case, the carrot is massive infrastructure projects and the awarding of major sporting events. Saransk, in fact, has hosted sporting events in the past like the World Race Walking World Cup and track and field events. The stick is obvious-military incursion like it was twice the case in Chechnya. But in fairness Mordovia Saransk are not exactly a football powerhouse. Furthermore, the Russian winter always makes football from late October to late March a tough sell, not just in the FNL but also in the RPL.

Finally, in Russia’s top division, overall attendance is still above the 2017–2018 average. Last season 13,956 people, on average, attended RPL games. That number was up to 16,790 per game in 2018–2019 (RU1 Attendances 2018/19) and grew once again in the still ongoing 2019–2020 season (RU1 Attendances 2019/20). It certainly helps that there are more top-class facilities among Russia’s first division clubs. Aside from the World Cup stadia in Moscow (Spartak), Rostov, Samara, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, and St. Petersburg, the RPL also welcomed new stadia in Krasnodar, Grozny, and two in Moscow (CSKA and, after years of delay, Dinamo’s new stadium) (Veth 2019). Then at the end of the 2018–2019 season FK Sochi were promoted, which meant that the Fisht Olympic Stadium finally had a permanent tenant in the RPL as well.

One-and-a-half years after the World Cup the numbers are, therefore, somewhat encouraging. Six of the 12 World Cup stadia are permanently represented in Russia’s Premier Liga. Furthermore, Tambov have played some of their home games at the Mordovia Stadium in Saransk, where they have averaged 6,826 visitors per game throughout the first half of the 2019–2020 season (RU1 Attendances 2019/20). On the flipside are the five stadia that are still lacking first division football: Nizhny Novgorod, Vladivostok, Kaliningrad, and Saransk all have clubs in the second division. Rotor Volgograd (18,775), FC Nizhny Novgorod (7,100), and Kaliningrad (6,250) have all struggled to fill their facility to full capacity (RU2 Attendances 2019/20). The only stadium without a permanent tenant has been the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. Russia’s biggest football specific stadium, however, hosted several national team games and also CSKA Moscow’s Champions League games in 2018–2019.

On balance, the situation can be described as satisfactory for World Cup organizers. Most stadia are now represented in the Russian top flight or host games of competitive second division sides. In other words, a scenario like the one in Brazil and South Africa, where some stadia are now completely empty, has been mostly avoided (Veth 2014a). But did the construction of the World Cup stadia justify the costs? Furthermore, did the Russian state keep its promises to FIFA and its own population of sustainability when it came to the construction of the facilities? Initially, Russia wanted to organize the 2012 European Championships, but in 2005 UEFA declined any bid from Russia with the argument that Moscow did not possess the infrastructure to host major sport events. In 2008, however, Moscow proved its credentials by successfully hosting the UEFA Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea FC (Arnold 2018). After the 2008 Champions League final, the RFU announced its intention to host the FIFA World Cup in 2018 (Sundermeyer 2012). The Soviet Union, and later Russia, had never organized a major tournament at a senior level before—in 1985 the Soviet Union had hosted the FIFA World Youth Championships, and the country had bid unsuccessfully to host the 1990 World Cup. This time, however, the bid was destined for success, as Russia expended considerable (and controversial—see Introduction) effort in order to ensure that the bidding committee would accept their offer. In late 2010, both the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were decided under a cloud of controversy as FIFA lurched from one scandal to another.

Back in 2010, in the immediate aftermath of the successful bid, then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (now President) announced that Russia would invest 300 billion roubles ($10 billion) into the infrastructure of the country. Putin also vowed that some of the major oligarchs would be investing money to ensure that the state would not be overspending on the event. Furthermore, major Russian companies promised to invest in infrastructure in order to support the Russian government’s investment: In Moscow, for example, LukOil sponsored the construction of a new stadium for Spartak Moscow, a club that the oil giant owns (Hayward 2010). The construction and reconstruction of the major football stadia by the Russian government, oligarchs, and leading companies have also created a black hole of corruption and money laundering. Since even before Russia was announced as the host country of the 2018 World Cup, stadium construction projects met with serious difficulties. One example was the reconstruction of the former Kirov Stadium in St. Petersburg. A massive concrete bowl located on Krestovskii Island used to be the second largest sport stadium in the Soviet Union with a capacity of 74,000 spectators. In 2006, Zenit St. Petersburg and its owner Gazprom were faced with a ruling by UEFA that the old Petrovskii Stadium in downtown St. Petersburg did not meet international standards and would no longer be allowed to host Champions League matches from the 2010–2011 season onwards. The new replacement, Zenit Arena, was supposed to be completed in 2008 but complications throughout the construction period delayed the completion of the project. Costs for the stadium exploded and reports on the final costs varied. It is estimated that the facility cost $1.5 billion, which would make it the most expensive football-specific stadium on the planet (Veth 2017b). After a series of delays the stadium finally opened in 2017, ten years after construction at the stadium started, and just in time for the Confederations Cup that is traditionally used as a test tournament one year prior to the World Cup (Milliardenbau bis 2017 fertig gestellt 2017).

Today, the Gazprom Arena with a capacity of 68,000 is the most expensive stadium in the world just ahead of the Wembley Stadium in London, which has a capacity of 90,000 spectators. The Gazprom Arena, however, is even more expensive, which means by costs per seat the stadium surpasses the Wembley Stadium even further. The Russian sport journalist Igor Rabiner compared the cost of the Zenit Stadium with that of the Allianz Arena in Munich, which at the time had a capacity of 70,000 spectators. The Allianz Arena cost $469 million (€340 million) to build, which is less than one-third of the construction cost of the new Zenit Stadium. Rabiner argued that it is due to the marshy ground of St. Petersburg that it is more difficult to build a large stadium on the Neva than it is in Munich. This, however, does not account for the entirety of the large difference in the cost of the two projects: As Sundermeyer and Rabiner also point out, there is a major discrepancy between the overall cost of stadium projects in Germany and that of projects in Russia and Ukraine (Rabiner 2011). This can only be explained through bad management, poor accounting and the embezzlement of government funds. In order to salvage the construction of the arena, the government has since become involved in the construction of the stadium (Veth 2016a). Furthermore, Gazprom, the main sponsor, has since pulled out of the project and has handed full control of construction to the municipality of St. Petersburg. In return, Gazprom no longer receives government funding for the construction of the Okhta-Tsentr, a large business centre that includes the headquarters for Gazprom. This deal left the completion of the arena entirely in the hands of the government (Kommersant 2010). The major problem with the construction of the arena is not that Russia is inexperienced in developing new infrastructure, but that lack of transparency that often accompanies construction projects...