Moscow’s Luzhniki Arena readies for 2018 World Cup

Moscow, June 3 (IANS) Moscow's historic Luzhniki Arena, which was built in the 1950s, underwent reconstruction and has been granted permission to be commissioned ahead of the 2018 football World Cup, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin announced.

"Luzhniki is now ready as a stadium," Sobyanin was quoted as saying by Tass news agency on Friday. "A commissioning report was signed today."

Moscow offers two stadiums as venues for the global football championship. They are the recently built Otkritie-Arena, which opened on September 5, 2014, and Luzhniki Arena, which is intended to host the opening match, one of the semi-finals and the final match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Refurbishment of the Luzhniki Arena was launched in 2013 and once the work has been fully completed, the stadium will extend spectator capacity to over 81,000 seats.

This is the second grand reconstruction of the stadium, which was initially built in 1957. The first major repairs of the stadium took place in the run-up to the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow.

Following the current reconstruction, the athletics tracks inside the stadium were removed, the spectators' stands are now rectangular in form and moved closer to the pitch, while the number of tiers will be increased to 16 from the previous 13.

According to the FIFA.com website, one of the main aspects of the reconstruction project is to preserve the historical facade of the stadium, which since 1956 has hosted "a multitude of major sporting and cultural events, including the 1980 Summer Olympics, world championships in ice hockey, athletics and rugby and concerts featuring some of the world's greatest musical performers."

The Luzhniki Arena's principal affinity, however, was with football since over 3,000 matches have been played there over the years.

The matches of the 2018 World Cup will be held between June 14 and July 15 at 12 stadiums.