Blatter hails Russia’s progress in $20b WC

World football supremo Sepp Blatter on Sunday said Russia was well ahead of schedule towards hosting the 2018 World Cup, despite facing the huge task of realising a project costing almost $20 billion. Blatter said one day after FIFA and Russia unveiled the final list of the 11 Russian host cities that Russia’s “new approach” was more efficient than that of South Africa in 2010 or Brazil which will host the 2014 edition. “We are one year ahead of schedule. This is a new approach for organising World Cups,” the FIFA president told reporters alongside Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko. “With this approach we have already come so far, six years before the start,” he said. Blatter emphasised the historic nature of hosting the event for the first time in eastern Europe, saying FIFA had decided to skip the “traditional houses” of western Europe. He said that after winning the right to host the World Cup in 2010, the South Africans were “just dancing” with joy and had to be told by FIFA to get to work.