The Star (Jamaica)

World Cup draw takes place at Kremlin today

- MOSCOW, RUSSIA (AP):

Vladimir Putin welcomes football luminaries to the Kremlin today for a World Cup draw that provides a global audience for the Russian president to attempt to burnish the image of a country scandalise­d by sports corruption.

By staging the ceremony for the 32 World Cup finalists at the seat of Russian power and draping the Kremlin in FIFA branding, football’s governing body is undercutti­ng its pretence that sports and politics should not mix — and in a country where the associatio­n has proved so damaging.

FIFA is on the final countdown to the first World Cup in Russia as it continues to assess the extent the 2014 World Cup squad was embroiled in the country’s state-sponsored doping scheme. FIFA President Gianni Infantino still plans to share a stage Friday with Vitaly Mutko, the Russian deputy prime minister accused of overseeing the elaborate scheme that saw positive samples across Russian sports destroyed or hidden.

Infantino, though, is still trying to rebuild FIFA’s image after farreachin­g bribery scandals threatened the future of the organisati­on. The draw comes one day short of the seventh anniversar­y of the World Cup vote from which so many of FIFA’s legal travails stemmed.

Russian authoritie­s deny government involvemen­t in doping and the country has weathered FIFA corruption investigat­ions, concerns about hooliganis­m, racism around games, deaths on World Cup constructi­on sites and a sponsor shortfall to stay on track to host football’s biggest tournament for the first time.

The draw is the moment fans can start to plan their journeys across Russia, with 11 host cities spread from Kaliningra­d on the Baltic Sea in the west to Yekaterinb­urg in the Ural mountains which separate Europe and Asia.

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