Russian World Cup Host Cities to be Cut This Month

The final list of host cities for the 2018 World Cup in Russia is to be announced September 29, a spokesperson for the Russia 2018 organizing committee told R-Sport on Wednesday.

The spokesperson did not specify where the decision, set to be made by FIFA’s executive committee, would be announced.

A FIFA delegation spent much of the spring and summer visiting the 13 candidate cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Yekaterinburg, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara, Saransk, Volgograd, Sochi, Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don.

Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has previously said that he expects two of the 13 cities to be dropped when the final list is announced.

Moscow’ s Luzhniki stadium is set to host the final, while Mutko has also said that St. Petersburg is guaranteed a semifinal.