According to Russia's Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, the advanced grade was awarded for the country's ahead-of-schedule wor

MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. FIFA has put the grade of 12 out of 10 possible points for Russia’s work in 2015 on its preparations for hosting the 2018 World Cup, Russian Sports Minister and the head of the 2018 Local Organizing Committee (LOC) said in interview with Welcome2018.com web portal. "FIFA is annually evaluating the work of the organizing committees on its 10-point system," Mutko, who is also the president of the Russian Football Union (RFU) and a member of the FIFA Executive Committee, said. "We were graded 12 for our work in 2015. The advanced grade was awarded for our ahead-of-schedule work."

He said the LOC had already approved a total of 64 training bases to accommodate the participants of the global football championship and introduced an electronic database, which provides information about each of the facilities. "We have completed the projects concepts concerning security, communications and transportation," the minister said. "Back in 2013 the Russian government already adopted a special program, which included about 300 facilities," he said. "They are all currently under construction payed by the federal budget. In addition we have added up approximately the same amount of regional infrastructure facilities." "In general - the work is currently underway in all possible directions, everything goes in line with the announced schedule and everything is under our control," Mutko said. Last week Mutko announced that the budget of Russia’s Local Organizing Committee in charge of the 2018 FIFA World Cup organization would stand in 2016 at four billion rubles ($57 million). "Two billion, or maybe less, were allocated by FIFA. The rest of the money comes from the state budget and donations of our business partners," Mutko announced last week on Wednesday. Russia won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup at the FIFA Congress in Guatemala on December 4, 2010 in a tight race against the bid from England, the joint bid from Portugal and Spain and the joint bid on behalf of Belgium and the Netherlands. The country selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.

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