Sochi to host the 2018 football championship

The International Federation of Football Associations, or FIFA for short, has determined what Russian cities will host the world football championship of 2018.

FIFA chose 11 cities, corresponding with the number of players in a football team – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Ekaterinburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Samara, Rostov-on-Don, Kaliningrad, Volgograd and Saransk.

«The list of cities which FIFA chose embraces nearly the entire territory of Russia, which is the world’s largest country,» Russian sports observer Artyom Lokalov says.

Of course, it was not only the geographical location of the cities that determined FIFA’s choice. Representatives of the federation have visited all the cities that sought to be the championship’s hosts, and examined the condition of sports facilities there. They examined how convenient it would be to hold the championship’s events in this or that particular city for the athletes, for fans and for the city’s residents.

Adapted from The Voice of Russia