“2018 World Cup gives world chance to rediscover Russia” – Russia’s bid leader

Russia has succeeded in winning the precious right to host the World Football Cup in 2018. Russia’s bid leader and Football Union Director-General Aleksey Sorokin spoke with RT about what now lies ahead.

Aleksey Sorokin said it is hard to overestimate Russia’s reputation and image benefits of winning the 2018 Cup as they are immense.“It was our intention in the first place to show a totally different country to the world – and to show that Russia is not different from any other country, to show that we do share the same problems, the same issues, that it is not something strange, something hostile, something weird,” Sorokin said.He added that Russia’s bid is totally within FIFA’s philosophy of moving ahead and opening up new horizons, stretching over huge regions.As for hooliganism, Sorokin said the problem will be tackled. “Russian Football Union has made it very clear by the statement of its ruling body, the Executive Committee, that it [racism and hooliganism] is something that they would really like to address in the nearest future,” he said. “They adopted a memorandum on combating any manifestations of racism, which we think would be the foundation for certain activities. In the end, those activities would be very effective.”