Host Russia has been a big winner at the 2018 soccer World Cup — and not just because of the national team’s surprising run on the pitch.
Defying widespread criticism of how the Cup was awarded and how well the Russians would serve as hosts, the well-run, incident-free organization so far is proving a rare soft power win for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.
A week before Mr. Putin meets President Trump for their first formal one-on-one summit in Helsinki, the Russian president is riding high from the surprise and acclaim from the thousands of visitors who have flocked to Russia to attend the matches in cities across the country. Analysts say Mr. Putin will likely ride the wave of good feeling into his future endeavors well after the final game clock expires.
“As the nonstop coverage of the World Cup comes to a close, Mr. Putin will find himself once again basking in the afterglow and looking for new opportunities to exercise Russian power globally,” former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Daniel Baer wrote in Foreign Policy last week.
Not wanting to shortchange eager spectators, Russia’s federal government pumped around $12 billion dollars into the World Cup organizing effort. Fans have taken notice, praising the well-prepared venues, the streamlined public transit and the unexpectedly warm Slavic hospitality, a hospitality far removed from the country’s image as authoritarian and suspicious of outsiders.
“This tournament is the best I’ve ever seen. This country has risen to the occasion! Come and enjoy it if you can,” Gary Neville, soccer pundit and former England/Manchester United defender, tweeted earlier this week.
Stories of beer vendors distributing libations just yards away from stoic relics of the Soviet Union and police officers joining the post-match celebrations paint Russia as festive environment for international competition. Fears of racist chants and Russian soccer hooligans terrorizing foreign fans have yet to materialize.
In one widely circulated video, a Russian man asks police officers if he can drink his beer in the crowded street.
“Are you Russian? Then no. If you’re a foreigner, yes,” one of the officers replied.
The political news out of Russia in recent years has been dominated by the crackdown on dissidents, pressure on foreign NGOs, and the increasing consolidation of power under Mr. Putin. The Kremlin has clashed with the U.S. and its Western allies over Crimea, Syria and other global crises. Many said FIFA’s decision to award the World Cup to Russia in 2010 was in itself suspect, an unexpected result given what critics said were superior rival bids.
“We go to new lands,” Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president who was later hit with a six-year ban over corruption and financial mismanagement charges, said at the time of Russia’s selection.
“Never has the World Cup been in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and Arabic world has been waiting for a long time. So I’m a happy president when we talk about the development of football.”
The success of this year’s World Cup is even more striking given that some of the countries that qualified have been in fierce diplomatic combat with Moscow. The U.K. condemned what it said was the Kremlin’s direct role in the poisoning of a former Soviet spy who was living in England, and many Western nations expelled Russian diplomats as a result of the accusation. Nations such as Sweden and Iceland stood with England in refusing to send officials to matches in Russia because of allegations the Kremlin was behind a chemical attack in March on Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent living in England.
But sporting success can trump national honor. Swedish officials are dropping their boycott of the Cup as the national team heads into a weekend quarterfinal match with England.
“We were consistent when we said that we would boycott the opening [games] in solidarity with Britain,” Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom told the Aftonbladet newspaper. “But in this situation, we consider it important to support our team and we’ve taken the decision [to end the boycott] after consultations with such countries as Denmark and the United Kingdom.
The U.S. State Department had advised American citizens to reconsider traveling to Russia ahead of the tournament because of terrorism and civil unrest in parts of the country.
But last month in Moscow, hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton offered praise to Mr. Putin and Russia’s handling of the World Cup.
“It’s great to be back in Moscow,” Mr. Bolton told the Russian leader. “We are most appreciative of your courtesy and graciousness here and I look forward to learning how you handled the World Cup so successfully, among other things.”
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