Time moves pretty fast, it feels like it was just a couple of months ago that Germany won the World Cup 2014 in Brazil. And now we are here, just a matter of hours for the world’s biggest football tournament to kick start in Russia. Here are some interesting facts to add to the frenzy and excitement.
- It will be the first time in history that Russia is hosting the FIFA World Cup. The kick-off match and the final will be held at the Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow.
- The official emblem colours – red, gold, black, and blue represents the heart and spirit of Russia. The logo was introduced at Russia’s International Space Station.
- The official mascot for FIFA 2018 is Zabivaka (means ‘the one who scores’ in Russian) a wolf who is fast, radiates fun, charm and confidence and extremely skilful with the ball. It was designed by graphic design student Ekaterina Bocharova.
- The official match ball of the 2018 FIFA World Cup will be the Telstar 18 designed by Adidas in black, white and gold lettering.
- The brand has been designing for FIFA since 1970.
- The original Telstar was designed for FIFA World Cup 1970 in Mexico. It was a black and white hexagonal patterned ball for comfortableviewing on black and white TVs. This pattern then came to be associated with footballs for a long time since then.
- One does not need a visa to visit Russia during the tournament. There will be a Fan-ID—the special permit available to holders of World Cup tickets—which will act as an entry and exit visa to and from Russia. Isn’t that good news?
- The winning team gets a prize money of $35 million while the runner-up team gets $25 million. Every participating team gets awarded a whopping $8 million dollars.
