Russia's Dvorkovich Appointed Chair of 2018 FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee

NOVOGORSK (Moscow Region) (Sputnik) - Alexey Sorokin will remain the director of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, while Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich will replace Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko as the LOC's chairman, the latter said on Tuesday.

In December, Mutko announced his plans to resign as LOC chairman and focus on his work in the government. It was initially planned that Mutko would be replaced by Sorokin.

"We have made the decision to make Sorokin [LOC] director general, while my colleague Arkady Dvorkovich will chair [the LOC]," Mutko told reporters.

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Russia will host its first FIFA World Cup from June 14 to July 15. The matches will take place in Kaliningrad, Kazan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Saransk, Sochi, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, and Yekaterinburg.