The Samara Arena and the 2018 FIFA World Cup

In 2010, Joseph Blatter announced that Russia was chosen to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup and that Qatar was chosen to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The world championship for national football teams in Russia is scheduled to take place from 14 June to 15 July. The matches will be played in Kaliningrad, Kazan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Saransk, Sochi, St. Petersburg, Volgograd and Yekaterinburg. Moscow will hosts the final of the tournament and it will be the only city with two 2018 FIFA World Cup venues.

The Samara Arena in Samara will be one of the 12 venues for the FIFA World Cup. The stadium failed to be ready in December 2017. Later, it failed to be ready in March. The latest deadline for the opening of the Samara Arena is in April, a few weeks before the start of the FIFA World Cup. The future home of football club Krylia Sovetov won’t be completely ready by then, but it will probably meet the minimal requirements to safely hold a game. It will host its first FIFA World Cup match on 17 June 2018, when the national football team of Costa Rica will face Serbia. Australia, Colombia, Denmark, Russia, Senegal and Uruguay will also play one FIFA World Cup group stage match at the stadium.