Will Putin’s World Cup Gamble Pay Off for Russia?
Vladimir Putin kept a watchful eye on a black-and-white soccer ball as it soared toward him through a spacious Kremlin office, before he deftly bumped it back with his head. On the other side of the room, Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, waited for the return pass. When it came, he flicked the ball up, juggling it from foot to foot before kicking it back to the Russian president. The two men, both dressed in suits and ties, were taking part in a promotional video for this summer’s World Cup, which Russia will host for the first time.
In May, just weeks after the filming of the video, Putin and Infantino met again, this time in Sochi, on Russia’s Black Sea coastline, where they inspected the Fisht Olympic Stadium. The 48,000-seat arena is one of a dozen that Russia has either built or revamped for the tournament, which runs June 14 to July 15 and takes place in 11 cities. The government says it has spent almost $12 billion on the tournament, not including some spending on infrastructure. Some independent estimates say the true figure could be billions of dollars higher, making this one of the most expensive World Cups ever.
This massive spending isn’t because Putin is a huge soccer fan; he isn’t particularly interested in it. Instead, some say, he hopes to use the World Cup to improve Russia’s international image. That’s a difficult task, especially after the Kremlin has been accused of war crimes in Syria and Ukraine, spy poisonings in Britain and election meddling in the United States and other Western countries. But Putin couldn’t have chosen a better platform to spread his message: The tournament is the world’s most-watched sporting event.
“Putin wants to present Russia as a strong country—not just in the military sense—that is able to organize events well on an international level,” says Andrei
