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People celebrate at a sports bar in Moscow December 2, 2010, after the announcement that...
Russia's leaders roared in triumph on Thursday after the country won the right to host the 2018 World Cup finals.Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who had complained of unscrupulous competitions in the contest, said he was leaving Moscow immediately to fly to FIFA headquarters in Zurich to thank the soccer governing body.
"Hooray! Victory!," President Dmitry Medvedev said on Twitter just minutes after Russia's bid was declared the winner.
"Now we need to prepare properly to host the World Cup and of course to play well," Medvedev said, echoing a wave of positive messages across the Russian internet.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia will spend "significantly less" on preparations for the 2018 World Cup than on the organisation of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
"We have a clear plan on assigning sites," he told reporters in the Black Sea resort.
Russia plans a massive building project to prepare for the World Cup and has put forward proposals for 16 stadiums in 13 host cities, with only three current stadiums being renovated and 13 to be built from scratch.
The construction project is budgeted at $3.82 billion -- the largest figure among the four European bidders.
Running costs for staging the 2017 Confederations Cup and 2018 World Cup in Russia would cost $641.3 million, the bid has estimated.
The 2014 Winter Olympics will cost about $8 billion, officials say, but Russian media have reported that the preparations could cost over $30 billion.
(Additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Katya Golubkova in Sochi, editing by Alan Baldwin)
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