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Southeast Europe
November 9, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 16
support they have shown for Serbia on its path to the European Union. I told them that dialogues need to be continued with the conviction that we will manage to avoid incidents and maintain the stability which we all need,” Vucic said.
The bill for hosting the event would inevitably be substantial. It cost Russia around $15bn to host the 2018 World Cup, the most expensive football tournament in history. This would be problematic for the three former socialist countries, which lack the modern infrastructure needed to host such an event. Greece, meanwhile, is only now recovering from a severe financial and economic crisis. They would have to direct billions of euro to building new stadiums and improving transport infrastructure.
Romania recently built one modern football arena in Bucharest with a capacity of around 55,000 seats, while the northwestern city of Cluj Napoca hosts a 30,000 seat arena, built in 2011. The Bucharest foot- ball stadium is to host four matches during the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, which be held in 12 cities in 12 European countries.
Romania was due to build a new metro line for the 2020 sports event, but works have not
even started and the authorities are working
on alternative solutions to ensure fans can get about the Romanian capital. Romania also has to upgrade three stadiums for Euro 2020.
In Serbia, the biggest football stadium in the country, Belgrade’s Rajko Mitic, has a capacity of 53,000 seats. In 1973, it hosted the European Cup final between Ajax and Juventus.
Despite efforts to build infrastructure for the event, hosting the the World Cup could bring enormous benefits to the SEE countries. Apart from improved infrastructure, which further attract more investors, another industry which could benefit a lot is tourism. More than 5mn tourists, including 2.9mn foreigners, visited the 11 Russian cities hosting World Cup matches, the head of the Russian Federal Tourism Agency Oleg Safonov told a press conference midway through the tournament, Tass reported at the time. Croatia, which unexpectedly made it to the finals, also saw an increase in tourist interest following the event.
The joint organisation of the sports event would also be beneficial to further cooperation between the Balkan countries.