FIFA Also Concerned about Security in Wake of Airport Attack

The day before the blast, FIFA president Sepp Blatter met with Russian soccer officials to sign what is called a Declaration of Appointment; essentially, this makes official Russia as the host of the 2018 World Cup.  Now, whether Russia should even be hosting the World Cup is a different argument for a different day (though the decision to let Russia host looks positively inspired in light of the dubious choice of Qatar in 2022) but the blast does bring to the forefront a primary concern FIFA has in awarding the event to Russia: an over-reliance on air travel.

The story I linked to notes this concern and you can read the full executive summary of Russia's bid evaluation here (pages 37-38).  I'll quote the relevant portion:

The bid’s transport plan is based mainly on the geographic clustering of its candidate Host Cities. The country’s vastness and its remoteness from other countries, coupled with the fact that the high-speed railway network is limited and would only link six candidate Host Cities by 2018, would put pressure on the air traffic infrastructure, potentially causing transfer challenges in view of the lack of alternative means of long-distance transport. The current air traffic situation is to be improved through major upgrades and capacity increases to the majority of the airports. However, any delay in the completion of the transport projects could impact on FIFA’s tournament operations an the proposed installation of temporary facilities could impose a high cost burden. In particular, a greater number of direct flight connections to major international airports would have to be made available from the majority of candidate Host City airports.

I'll translate that FIFA-speak into English: "Oh, shit, you can't get anywhere in Russia except on a plane.  They better improve their airports or we're screwed."

Now, if you're FIFA, in addition to the already obvious infrastructure problems, you're most likely looking at dramatically beefed-up security, longer lines, fears about another airport attack, etc.  Indeed, President Medvedev is already blaming "lax security" and The Economist is already reporting that the immediate move to force all persons entering Domodedovo airport to walk through metal detectors is already causing pileups which, of course, is its own security problem.  FIFA has to be thinking about another attack on a Russian airport during the World Cup, one that, if their documents are to be believed, could completely cripple the ability of all participants (players, media, fans) to get from one venue to another.  Will FIFA, which often demands carte blanche from its hosts, demand direct flights for the teams that bypass security?  Who knows?

Not to mention that you would have to believe that this incident is likely going to raise the cost of all future renovations and, at some point, you have to wonder when somebody is going to ask where all the money is going to come from. But that's a Russia-specific problem.

Regardless, no doubt both the IOC and FIFA will be watching to see how Russia responds to this crisis.  Privately, they're certainly sweating.