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World Cup 2018 – One Year On, St. Petersburg’s Legacy

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An aerial view of Zenit’s home, the Gazprom Arena | Zenit.ru

Summer Madness

While Moscow is the administrative capital of the nation, many consider St. Petersburg the capital of culture, the most beautiful city in Russia and is the nation’s “Window on Europe”. Even then, as the official “second city”, Piter played host to seven games throughout the tournament, including the 3rd/4th Place Playoff (Belgium v England), a semi-final (France v Belgium), a Round of 16 match (Sweden v Switzerland) and Russia’s 3-1 victory over Egypt, seeing the hosts qualify for the knockout stages.

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Stadium Legacy

As soon as Gazprom took over Zenit at the end of 2005, talks about a new stadium in the city began. If Zenit were to fulfil Gazprom’s ambitions, the club had to move away from the old and outdated Petrovsky Stadium.

The decision to build the stadium was taken long before Russia was awarded the World Cup. The ground had already broken ground in 2008, but since then the stadium has been hit by one scandal after another. Eventually, this led to Gazprom pulling financial support for the construction, which led to the local government having to step in. The stadium became the most expensive stadium in the world due to the many problems. Eventually, the price of the stadium turned out to be almost ten times higher than the original estimation.

On 22 April 2017 Zenit finally moved into their new home, when they played against FC Ural in the Premier League. Branislav Ivanović became the first ever player to score at the ground.

Despite the difficult construction process and constant delays, by the time of the World Cup, almost all issues were solved, with the stadium one of the most atmospheric and beautiful in the world.

We got in touch with the Editor of Zenit’s Official English Website and friend of RFN, Mark Bowen, to discuss the legacy of the Arena:

The new stadiums and infrastructure have been a massive bonus, especially in a city that gets as cold as St. Petersburg, the results of the Russian team on the pitch helped too and all that added together has had a great effect on the sport here. Now at Zenit 40% of the fans who attend home games are women and children and the Gazprom Arena has made all that possible. Going to see a match at the old Petrovsky in November was quite a testing experience with no roof and the icy gales coming off the Neva, it was not somewhere people wanted to take their kids.

With the huge capacity we have at the Gazprom Arena it means we can offer a very large quantity of really cheap tickets, last season they started at just 200 rubles (€3) which meant everyone can afford to attend games and introduce the younger generation to football.

I feel the future of football in this country is extremely bright and that’s thanks to Russia 2018.

Undoubtedly, the Gazprom Arena was worth the money, for both the city and football club. Zenit finally has the stadium they have long sought to show the world that they are a force in European football. Though the Petrovsky was charming and historic, it was simply no longer fit for purpose.

One quote from Field of Dreams that has been aphorised over and over is ‘if you build it, he will come’. Well, as soon as Zenit build theirs, the crowds duly came. According to football statistician Stanislav Chudin, last season saw an average attendance of 47,943 (84% of the 56,196 capacity) and the maximum attendance was 61,467 in the Spartak match – which in actuality is at 109% capacity as some seats are always covered for regular games. In each of the respective stats, Zenit boasted the highest figures in the country.

Kirov overlooking the glorious Gazprom Arena | James Nickels/RFN

Natalya Zubarevich, an expert in regional economics and professor at Moscow State University believes the stadium will eventually pay for itself:

It is obvious that all the stadiums, with the possible exception of those in Moscow or St. Petersburg, will be unprofitable.

In some places, the authorities will be forced to sustain them, and some regions might be able to get a federal subsidy. This is will be a matter of bartering between the regional and federal powers. But city authorities will most definitely not be able to sustain them. Their budgets are too small.

But it is inevitable that over time, the big stadia housing big teams in big cities will prove to be profitable to both the regional governments and football clubs themselves.

The Gazprom Arena is unequivocally one of the earliest and probably longest lasting success stories from a footballing benefit, despite the astronomic costs and prior difficulties.

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Life after Football

It is quite difficult to gauge the direct effect upon the infrastructure of a city the size and grandiose nature of St. Petersburg. As with Moscow, Rio, Johannesburg, Berlin et al, capitals and genuine metropolis’ continue just as normal.

The biggest bonus has been in tourism. Those who visited, especially English and American, realised the rhetoric between two nations’ own broadcasting channels belies the truth. Word spread and Russia’s image has been irrevocably improved somewhat by the hosting of the games. As a result, fans have returned in their droves for European away games in Russa, St. Petersburg is a popular Euro 2020 location and regular tourism has returned to the staple of wealthy, light-spending cruise pensioners in St. Petersburg: non-spending Chinese tourists.

Even FIFA President Gianni Infantino has discussed the changing notion of the country:

I think that a lot of preconceived opinions [about Russia] have changed with and thanks to this World Cup because everyone has seen the true nature of all the people.

In a lengthy interview with RFN, Mark Bowen agrees:

I can say going to games is much more pleasant now for sure, but don’t think life away from football has actually changed that much. St. Petersburg has always been a tourist destination and we’re used to huge numbers pouring into the city, most of the young people here speak good English and quite often another language on top of that.

Interestingly, however, as a St. Petersburg native he doesn’t see vastly increased tourism as an outright good:

If you’re asking me if football tourism is a good thing, then it’s a very double-edged sword for me, I’m not a fan of selfie-taking tourists only interested in looking at their phones and waving their national flags around if that’s what you’re asking. In England, we’ve seen those fans price out youngsters and I think that’s a real shame and will lead to a lot of problems for the game in the very near future. I was a junior Gunner as a youngster and tickets were only a fiver and I could afford to go regularly at a young age, last time I went to the Emirates the prices scared the life out of me and I certainly couldn’t afford to take any kids with me, but that’s a big debate for another day.

Thankfully things in Russia are different and If someone wants to take in a game while here then of course please come along, the more the merrier! New Zenit fans are always welcome and many of our fans from abroad often fell in love with the club when watching a game here whilst here on holiday or as a student, and as the World Cup showed everyone, it’s completely safe and you’ll be made to feel very welcome. I know whenever I am abroad I try and go and see the local side play and none of the experiences I’ve had have been half as good as being at the Gazprom Arena. Just don’t get your phone out at every opportunity.

The legacy outside of football, in truth, hasn’t affected a great deal. But this is St. Petersburg, already a very competently ran, cosmopolitan and affluent city.

However, the biggest and most important factor outside of football is that people, not politics are able to measure success. Many I spoke to directly equated the games very much to the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Though they are now Muscovite expats, they see a seminal event that welcomed the world, despite the political difficulties beforehand – boycott and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The 1980 Olympics Opening Ceremony at the Luzhniki | CNN

The parallels to the first major event held behind the Iron Curtain are numerous. This time around, we had the Salisbury poisoning scandal and Royal/political boycotts. However, what we found were smiling volunteers, beautiful state-of-the-art facilities, surgically clean streets and a welcoming population battling gamely through language barriers to aid any tourist.

Mark Bowen agrees that this has followed a shifting attitude between the two and hopes for more of the same:

I don’t think it’s a case of Russians changing their mind about foreigners, more of foreigners changing their minds about Russia. As a foreigner living here people have only ever been nice to me and I’ve always been treated extremely well by my colleagues, neighbours and the people I interact with on a daily basis. I know people here were very hurt by the hatchet job some of the foreign media broadcasters did on the country before the tournament and I’m proud of how Russia as a country proved them wrong. Every country has it nuances and problems and in that respect, Russia is no different, don’t get my started on the traffic and bureaucracy here, but as to how it treats its guests, it is beyond reproach in my book and I never expected anything different.

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The Future

St. Petersburg has always been a fervent football city. All the way back during WW2 the starving citizens encircled during the Seige of Leningrad still managed to play a 40-minute game of football. Despite all the insurmountable problems they faced, they still had to organise a “professional” match in front of spectators.

However, the World Cup has definitively opened up the game to a whole different audience – though Sergei Semak leading Zenit to the RPL title certainly helped.

Much of Russian “celebrity” culture is obsessed with appearance and social media, and the flavour of the month is to be seen in the hospitality boxes at the Gazprom Arena – just like in England we have the hordes of celebs lined-up in camera shot of the Royal Box at Wimbledon’s Centre Court. Though rather cynically disliking all of this pompous posturing, it can only help influence more and more to regularly attend games. Even famous ska-punk rockers Leningrad have played 65,000 sellout concerts at the stadium over the course of the last year, with the last being the biggest ever concert held in the post-Soviet history of Russia.

When prompted upon Russia’s performance and the longer-term effects of this on prompting further love for football, Bowen is optimistic:

For me St. Petersburg has always been a football city and everyone here really embraced the World Cup with open arms. The tournament had a really wonderful and uniting effect on the city and has certainly helped to spread the game to a new and wider audience, I think in a similar way what Italia 90 did for English football way back when, Dzyuba became our Gazza!

I’m sure it has helped, the passion and success the team showed created an amazing buzz around the whole country, and knocking out a team like Spain really didn’t hurt. It has had a bit of an Italia 90 effect here and I believe kids who may have perhaps gone to ice-hockey or another sport may now follow football instead. In Russia we’ve got big cities like Omsk and Chelyabinsk that have a million + populations but no top flight, or even second tier football, so its hard for youngsters in those places to get into the game, but with Russia doing so well, it has given those kids a team to follow that they have a true connection with. Before the tournament there wasn’t much positivity around Stanislav Cherchesov’s team and their chances, so I’m really glad things worked out so well and even beyond our expectations.

In St. Petersburg, where the stadium and infrastructure really isn’t an issue, the spotlight needs to be placed firmly on some of the more difficult factors of prolonging Russia’s legacy; long-term enthusiasm for football and prolonging the openness of the tournament.

If the “Window on Europe” can lead the way, just as it has through most of the last tercentenary, the rest of the nation will surely follow suit and prove an irrevocable strong legacy.

The post World Cup 2018 – One Year On, St. Petersburg’s Legacy appeared first on Russian Football News.


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