Arsenal, Chelsea owners may help finance 2018 World Cup

By Phil Watson | Feb 16, 2015

With Russia’s economy struggling, President Vladimir Putin is reportedly going to call on some of the richest owners in soccer to help pay for the World Cup.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly going to call on a pair of English Premier League owners with ties to the country and deep pockets to help the economically flagging nation pay for hosting the 2018 World Cup.

According to The Independent, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and Arsenal owner Alisher Usmanov will be asked to help fund a World Cup that is in dire financial straits because of a national economy in Russia that is lurching toward a recession, pushed there by the collapsing oil markets in tandem with sanctions levied by the West over Russia’s involvement with Ukraine.

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Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko announced earlier that the original $22 billion budget for the World Cup was to be slashed by 10 percent and FIFA president Sepp Blatter—apparently unwilling to give back the swag behind awarding the competition to Russia in the first place—has said Russia could reduce the number of venues.

Russia has so far rejected that suggestion, but Mutko has said the country will be looking to streamline stadium designs without skirting FIFA guidelines.

Citing Russian sources, The Independent said Putin plans to call in favors from oligarchs such as Abramovich and Usmanov.

This isn’t unprecedented—Russia’s $51 billion folly known as the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games also got a significant amount of private help. No reports of how much arm twisting was required.

Alisher Usmanov, owner of English Premier League side Arsenal FC, may be called upon to help finance the 2018 World Cup in his native Russia. (© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY 3.0)

The World Cup will not be the lavish affair Putin was demanding and could be run on the cheap if the Russian economy continues to worsen.

Some pundits are going so far as to suggest that Putin’s desire to keep the World Cup as a showcase event for his nation could spur him to a permanent political compromise regarding Ukraine.

“There seems to be something of an emerging understanding that the government will help the titans of the economy to maintain the liquidity they need to stay in business,” said Sam Greene, director of King’s Russia Institute at King’s College London. “In return for that, they remain quiet, they remain loyal, but they also maintain employment and they keep moving money through the economy.”

Part of that money movement now seems to be to move it into Russia’s flagging World Cup budget in order to prevent the event from becoming a public relations fiasco for Putin’s government.

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