Official website of the President of Russia

Документ   /

The President stressed, in particular, that Russia would make every effort to prepare for the 2018 FIFA World Cup properly and on time.

Earlier, Vladimir Putin and Gianni Infantino toured the renovated Luzhniki Stadium, watched the training of young football players and kicked off the 2018 FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour.

* * *

Beginning of meeting with FIFA President Gianni Infantino

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Infantino,

We are very happy to see you at another stage, at the beginning of a new stage in preparations for the World Cup. You have seen how our young athletes, the future champions perceive this. You were absolutely right when you said that the Cup has a magic significance and a magic quality.

You and I have seen that the renovation of Luzhniki, the main World Cup arena, has been completed. And we were extremely glad to hear your high assessment.

I am aware that FIFA experts are closely following the work at other football arenas in other Russian cities. We will take every effort to complete everything on time and with high quality.

Four stadiums are ready, everything is on schedule, and financing has been provided in full. I strongly hope that your experts, who, as I have said, are monitoring the work closely, will continue supporting our efforts and together we will bring the preparations for the World Cup to completion, to the result we expect.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino (transcript from English): Thank you, President Putin. Of course, this stadium here, the Luzhniki Stadium, as well as the work, that the FIFA experts are following very closely in the other venues, shows not only the professionalism and the efficiency of Russia, but also the heart and passion.

So I was very happy to hear your words today as well as to see the preparation work, which is indeed going extremely well.

And the results that we can see already, in not only the four venues that you mentioned, but also in the others, which are almost completed, are exceptional.

This stadium, the Luzhniki Stadium, is a perfect example of what I want to say because it is not only a perfect football stadium, which is bringing together history with a façade and future with the interior.

But it has also an incredible, positive energy.

And you can feel it when you go down on the pitch.

And for those players, who will have to play there when this stadium is full, I don’t know how their knees will be going when they enter the pitch.

They have to prepare themselves really well.

But you can see, that from our side as well, we are happy, we are progressing, the adrenaline is growing, the trophy, with the Trophy Tour that starts now, will create another wave of enthusiasm in this country and around the world and I am the longer the more looking very much forward to next year, the World Cup in Russia.

<…>