Russia to cut spending on World Cup 2018: Sports Minister

Russia has to cut its budget spending on preparations of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said on Thursday.

"The budget spending will be slashed by 10 percent," Mutko said.

He specified the cut would be applied to organizational issues like the opening ceremony, subsidies to the organization committee and others, without affecting the global soccer championship's infrastructure projects.

He said due to depreciation of the ruble, the cost of construction materials has hiked up by 25-30 percent as 25 percent of the materials for stadiums construction are from abroad.

Mutko refuted suggestions that Russia could downsize football stadiums to save money. "FIFA won't let us do that," he said.

The First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov plans to hold a meeting On Feb.4 to discuss the preparations for the tournament.

The total budget for the event was set at 664 billion rubles in 2012. The figure stood at about 20 billion U.S. dollars at that time, but it drops to nearly half the number according to current exchange rate.

Preparations for the event require implementation of about 300 infrastructure projects in 11 host cities. Besides, 20 more cities were involved in visitors' accommodation service program.

Last July, Mutko said about one million international visitors are expected to come to Russia for the month-long gala. Endi