STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And the 2018 decision was another surprise. Russia will hold that competition. Quite a coup for Russia, so we're going to go to our Moscow correspondent, NPR's David Greene. Hi, Dave.
DAVID GREENE: Hi there, Steve.
INSKEEP: I suppose people tend to think of Russia more for their hockey than their soccer.
GREENE: I think you could say that, although, you know, it's a surprise here at the moment. But in the last few months and weeks, I mean, Russia was considered one of the favorites. I mean, this is a large country. As you know, they've never hosted a World Cup, and so they thought that they had a pretty good argument. But the last few days people started saying, well, it's probably going to go one of the big countries like England, and people started feeling the air go out of the effort here. So I think there is some surprise, but I was just out on the streets, and there's no honking, no one is celebrating. It is like zero degrees. I think people must be in their living rooms watching this coverage on TV.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: Jumping up and down indoors.
GREENE: Exactly.
INSKEEP: Well, you know, it's easy to run down Russia. It certainly gets a lot of bad press. But Moscow has been quite a glittering city that's had a lot of development, isn't it?
GREENE: It has. I mean Moscow's an incredibly expensive city. You know, a lot of critics say this is where the elite can live and play and work, and that the rest of the country is in bad shape. So as they start looking at the venues, we'll have to see if this is really an opportunity to - for Russia to start developing other cities in the way that Moscow really has.
INSKEEP: Is it also an opportunity for the prime minister of Russia, the man who's seen in many cases as running the country, Vladimir Putin?
GREENE: And Russia, you know, gets a bad rap in a lot of the WikiLeaks documents we've seen, you know, sort of a bad reputation in the eyes of U.S. officials. So I think Russia is going to see this as an opportunity to improve its image and really show people some of the positives of this place.
INSKEEP: Well, we still don't have all the WikiLeaks documents out, so maybe we'll discover there are documents relating to Russia's effort to get the World Cup here or America's effort to get it. Who knows, who knows.
GREENE: We'll be watching.
INSKEEP: Is it clear where it will be in Russia, by the way, David? Largest country in the world here.
GREENE: But there are a lot of fans and I think a lot of cities that will be very excited to host some of these matches. So we'll see what they choose.
INSKEEP: Now, we're talking seven or eight years in advance, so the Russians will have a chance to improve their game.
GREENE: Who's going to be prime minister? Who's going to be president? We have no idea. But, yeah, they have a good chance to build up the program. I think they will not want a repeat of this last World Cup. They will actually want to qualify for the World Cup that they are hosting.
INSKEEP: David, thanks very much.
GREENE: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: That's NPR's David Greene in Moscow. Russia has won the 2018 World Cup in soccer. The 2022 World Cup will go to Qatar. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
