Russia gets the World Cup 2018

MOSCOW, Russia — Russia on Thursday won the right to host the 2018 World Cup, sending the country into a frozen frenzy as it celebrated its first ever chance to host soccer’s greatest championship.

Russia won over England, and over joint bids from Holland-Belgium and Spain-Portugal, bringing the World Cup to Eastern Europe for the first time. FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, also voted to give the 2022 cup to Qatar, throwing out the U.S. bid and electing to give the championship its Middle East debut.

The decision was met with resounding glee in Russia, a country that has fallen far from its days of Soviet-era sporting glory. Russia failed to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and saw its worst ever Olympics results at the Vancouver games earlier this year.

Now it is hoping to show the world it is still an athletic force to be reckoned with. It hopes the 2018 World Cup, as well as the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in the southern city of Sochi, will provide platforms for it to do just that.

Russia’s bid was mired in controversy and its victory met with dismay from supporters of chief rival England. But giving its final presentation at FIFA’s base in Zurich on Thursday evening, Russia put forward a romantic vision of a country steeped in love for the beautiful game that can be transformed through the power of sport.

“I believe that today our team plays for the future of football,” Andrei Arshavin, the baby-faced captain and star of Russia’s national team, told the crowd in Zurich. “We ask you to believe in us and help shape the future of Russia.”

In Zurich, Russia’s final bid was led by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. “People think they know my country but in reality they don’t,” he said, before telling a story of playing soccer in -58 degrees Farenheit weather with a frozen ball.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s powerful sport-loving prime minister, had planned to lead the Russian delegation but pulled out late Wednesday when it appeared that Russia would fail to win its bid. After the results of the vote were announced, Putin changed his mind again.

“I will go to Zurich — I promised the members of the executive committee that if the decision was taken in Russia’s favor, that I would definitely go, so as to thank them personally and speak of our common plans for the championship’s preparation,” he said.

Ever the consummate strongman, Putin also used the win as a chance to promote the authoritarian system he has built. “This speaks to the fact that people have faith in Russia — faith in its possibilities, its readiness, never mind that certain sites aren’t ready, but the readiness of its economy, its social and political spheres, to the organizing of such events,” Putin said. “I mention the political because political stability is also important for the formulation of long-term plans.”

Putin’s prominence in pushing the bid, as well as his statement, will only fuel speculation that he plans to return to the presidency in 2012.

Meanwhile, President Dmitry Medvedev simply took to his Twitter like an excited schoolchild to write: “We got it! Russia will host the 2018 FIFA World Cup! Now we need to prepare for it. And I hope our team will do well too.”

Russia has its work cut out for it. It has promised 16 stadiums for the event — so far nine are under construction or renovation. Matches will be spread out over five clusters in the west of the country — in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the European sector of Kaliningrad, near Sochi in the south and around the Volga region. While there will be no need to take the eight-hour flight to Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific Coast or days-long train rides to Siberia, the distances remain vast and the infrastructure, for now, woefully lacking. Rampant corruption will only complicate things. Widespread racism and violent football hooliganism might convince some fans to stay away.

Russia — and soccer fans around the world — have eight years to worry about that. On Thursday, it was a time for celebration (and, likely for many Russian officials, a chance to look beyond a flood of WikiLeaks diplomatic cables that exposed U.S. thinking of the country as a mafia state).

“In my country today we have many difficulties,” Shuvalov acknowledged, speaking, like the rest of the Russian bid team, in rare English. “We have in Russia our own ambitions.”

He presented a Russian victory as a sort of panacea that would erase the horrors of the past and ensure a smooth future for one of the world’s most troubled countries.

“Bidding for the World Cup, I think it will help a lot Russia to overcome all the tragic past, all the difficulties we had in the 20th century,” Shuvalov said. “It’s going to be a completely different nation, open to the entire world, with new generations of people who will be brothers and sisters of the whole family of the world.”

Let the countdown begin.