Russia’s Sports Ministry has sued companies building 2018 FIFA World Cup stadiums for 2.9 billion rubles ($50.8 million) over delays in constructions schedules.
Russia is expected to spend $13.2 billion on the tournament, in what will be the costliest football competition in history. More than half of that will come from the federal budget, while private and state-run firms are expected to shoulder a third of the costs.
Russia’s Sports Ministry filed six lawsuits against four contractors building stadiums for next summer, the RBC business portal reported Wednesday, citing court records.
It seeks to recover $17.8 million from the construction firm of Putin’s billionaire ally Gennady Timchenko, which is building stadiums in host cities Nizhny Novgorod and Volgograd.
The ministry hopes to recover the rest of the sum from contractors building stadiums in Saransk, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad and Rostov-on-Don, over violations of “a number of obligations on construction schedules,” RBC reported.
Alexei Milovanov, the head of the Sports Ministry’s intermediary Sport-In, pledged that the lawsuits would not derail construction deadlines.
“All the stadiums will be built in line with the current and approved work schedules and will be fully ready for test matches planned for March-April,” he was cited as saying.
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