The 2018 World Cup will be a celebration of football. For Russian president Vladimir Putin, though, it will represent one more victory over West politics.
Russia’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup was traced with scandals, bribery and corruption. After former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his associates were caught cheating by the FBI in 2015, those suspicions were simply confirmed, albeit unofficially. Despite the best efforts of some of the Western politicians to take away the Cup from Russia, alleging delays, bad working conditions and worker exploitation, Putin didn’t give up what he worked so diligently to obtain. And he did it by walking on needles and thorns, the old-fashioned Russian way. Russia’s list of crimes, according to the West, is quite long. It provoked and helped escalate the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, illegally annexed Crimea, was accused by Holland of shooting down an airplane, was accused by international officials for running a state-sponsored doping program during the 2014 Winter Olympics, has been accused by Washington of election meddling and by Great Britain of an attempted murder of a former double agent and his daughter using a nerve agent. Moscow’s support of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad also puts it in a direct conflict with the West (the United States in particular). Oh, and then there are the frequent fly-byes in international air space.
Russia, however, was never convicted for anything. In Putin’s mind, these are all attempts by the West to ruin Russia’s image and make it public enemy number one. Putin’s unwavering confidence speaks for itself. He has not blinked in the midst of all the accusations.
“For Putin, hosting the World Cup speaks to the failure of sanctions and the failure of Western efforts to isolate him,”
For him, the important thing is that the people he represents believe in him, that his country continues to grow and move in the right direction and that he resists the constant pressure put on by the West. No matter how many times he gets poked, Putin responds with rationality and reason. Russia organized the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and will organize the 2018 World Cup. As Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova told reporters last month:
“The stronger the anti-Russian campaign ahead of the World Cup is, the more people will be genuinely amazed when they see there is no barbed wire at the stadiums,”
New stadiums have been built, older ones modernized, roads and cities like Moscow overhauled, and railway links upgraded. Putin is leaving a lasting legacy. People will see first hand that Russia is not what West politics portray it to be. The world balance is shifting from West to East and the master of puppets is pulling the strings. All quotes taken from www.reuters.com