Apertura de los primeros centros de identificación de fanáticos para la Copa Mundial 2018 en Rusia

Last Wednesday, the first centres issuing fan passports for the FIFA World Cup 2018 have opened in four Russian cities, namely St. Petersburg, Moscow, Sochi and Kazan, which will host the 2017 FIFA Confederation Cup.

According to the Russian Minister of Communications and Mass Media Nikolay Nikiforov, “the aim of this project is to make the experience of participation in such competitions as comfortable as possible and to relieve the participants of games from any additional checks. Neither Russian nor foreign citizen will be admitted to the stadium without a fan passport, he will have to get it anyway”.

Fans will be able to get such passports – or “fan-ID” as they are known – either personally in issuing centres or remotely by submitting the application via fan-id.ru and getting the issued passport back delivered by the courier service. The first passports are already available for the order and can be received starting in February 2017.

The fan-ID will not only be granting admission to the stadiums but will also serve as a Russian visa for foreign visitors. There is also the question of concessionary fares on these cards on public transport within the region events as well as the opportunity to use some other available free services.

According to the deputy prime minister responsible for sport, tourism and youth politics and head of the World Cup local organizing committee (LOC) Vitaly Mutko, fan passports will play an important role in the provision of security during the major football tournaments in Russia. “Security Services will make and share a list of persons regarded as undesirable to attend sports events in various countries, such persons will not be allowed to get fan passports”, – announced V. Mutko.