Maybe you haven’t heard, but the U.S. will not be participating in the 2018 World Cup in Russia. But that hasn’t stopped Americans from purchasing more tickets for next summer’s tournament than any other country outside the host nation. And the U.S. isn’t the only country that won’t be competing in Russia to rank in the Top 10 in World Cup ticket sales.
And so it’s settled. On November 15, Peru claimed the final spot in the 32-team field for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, bringing us to the final event before the June 14 kick off at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow: the draw to determine the eight groups of four for the finals.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has come through on his promise to make the World Cup bidding process more transparent and open to scrutiny after the fallout following the 2010 vote which saw the 2018 and 2022 World Cups handed to Russia and Qatar.
On June 13, 2018, 211 member federations and the 38-person FIFA council will decide who’ll win the right to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and all of those votes will be open to public viewing.
We’re now only 220 days away from the 2018 FIFA World Cup kicking off at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, and the entire 32-team field for the event will be decided by Wednesday, November 15. We’ve seen various unconfirmed leaks regarding what the competing nations will be wearing come June, but Adidas has lifted the lid on their entire range of designs before the start of this week’s international break.
Here it is! The ball that will inevitably cause some sort of sh*tstorm come June — it’s the Adidas Telstar 18, the official ball of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Pep Guardiola already hates it. Goalkeepers are already complaining that it dips, dives, ducks and dodges too much.
Doing soccer in Russia is expensive. With the 2018 World Cup less than a year away, it just got even more expensive. The costs for next year’s World Cup rose by $600 million more than previously planned, Russian authorities disclosed on Tuesday.
Vladimir Putin “would be glad” to see banned FIFA dignitaries Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini at the 2018 World Cup, according to the Russian president’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. Blatter and Platini have both received lengthy bans from FIFA for their roles in a secret payment made from Blatter’s FIFA to Platini, then the UEFA boss. The two held their posts atop the federations when Russia was awarded the 2018 World Cup (and Qatar for 2022, but that’s another story).
Russia and Qatar will host the next two World Cups. But neither country is very good at soccer. It may be hypocritical right now to throw dirt on Russia and Qatar after the U.S. failed to qualify for the World Cup themselves, but let’s be bitter Americans and point out all the teams that are better than Russia and Qatar in soccer.