Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says the costs for the 2018 World Cup will be more than 660 billion rubles ($20 billion), about double the amount Russia originally estimated it would spend.
Medvedev told his Cabinet on Thursday that 336 billion rubles ($13 billion) of the cost would come from the federal budget. It was not clear where the rest would come from.
When Russia won the bid for the World Cup in 2010, Vladimir Putin projected the costs at about $10 billion.
The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, one of the president's pet projects, has seen huge cost overruns, with estimates rising some fourfold to $51 billion.
(AP)
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