MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend the coin tossing ceremony for the FIFA World Cup in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he will meet with the football governing body’s outgoing president Sepp Blatter, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.
"We expect [Putin’s] meeting with Blatter, it is in the schedule. And yes, the president will take part in this ceremony, it is a lengthy one," Peskov told journalists at a briefing.
The toss-up is scheduled for this Saturday. It will start at 6 p.m. local time (15:00 GMT) and will last for two hours. The ceremony will be broadcast in more than a hundred countries.
Russia won the bidding process to host the 2018 World Cup tournament. It will be held from June 14 through July 15, 2018.
Blatter stepped down as FIFA president in June, four days after he had been reelected for a fifth term amid a corruption scandal. The Congress at which a new organization head will be elected will take place on February 26, 2016, in Zurich.
