One of Russia's World Cup host cities has yet to solve the problem of the future of two prisons that are currently next door to the stadium that will host the football matches in the 2018 tournament, officials admitted Wednesday.
The Urals city of Yekaterinburg, the most easterly
of Russia's World Cup hosts, needs to move the prisons because their presence will clearly be jarring for the thousands of foreign fans expected to attend games.
But the Sverdlovsk region — whose main city is Yekaterinburg — acknowledged that there is not enough money in its budget for the costly relocation of the prisons.
"There is not enough money in the budget of the Sverdlovsk region to move the prisons from the area that will host the World Cup," the regional government spokeswoman Elena Voronova told the ITAR-TASS news agency. She said that the regional government was now in talks with the federal authorities to receive extra budgetary means to move the prisons.
The head of the regional prisons service had earlier complained that nothing was being done beyond talking about moving the prisons.