Have we been scammed?

Ten billion federal rubles were the main argument when in February of this year deputies of the Legislative Assembly were persuaded to allocate another 9.4 billion rubles from the city budget for the stadium. Officials explained the increase in price by “FIFA requirements” on the eve of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, an increase in the arena’s capacity to 68 thousand spectators and the presence of a retractable field that will be dried and ventilated after matches.

True, 68 thousand seats are needed only for the semi-finals of the World Cup - FIFA does not make such requirements for matches at earlier stages. And the retractable field, when the Russian championship has switched to the “autumn-spring” system and there will be a break in the summer, turns out to be meaningless. What kind of drying and ventilation in snow and rain?
Legislative Assembly deputies were lulled by the assurances of Vice-Governor Roman Filimonov about the “very big” chances of compensating for additional expenses from the federal budget. They read a letter from Valentina Matvienko to the Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko. It was assumed that Vitaly Leontievich would not be able to refuse Valentina Ivanovna...
However, he was able to: in his response, Mutko writes that “allocations in 2011–2012 are not provided for the construction of the stadium.” So it turns out that Peter was scammed?
The governor, however, stated that this cannot be regarded as a refusal. Indeed, in Mutko’s letter it is said that “after the appropriate decisions are made, the issue of financial support for the facilities for the World Cup will be considered further.” And therefore Matvienko is confident that “as soon as the decision is made, St. Petersburg will receive the necessary funds to complete the construction of the stadium”...
It is unclear what this confidence is based on. There are no federal allocations for the stadium for Zenit for 2011–2012, and after that they will no longer be needed: it should be completed in November 2012. In addition, Napoleonic plans for the construction of one and a half dozen stadiums for the 2018 World Cup have already begun to be scaled back: in the Moscow region, Samara, Yaroslavl and Saransk, World Cup matches will not be held and, accordingly, new stadiums will not be built there.
During the discussion of the law on increasing St. Petersburg expenses for the construction of the stadium, an amendment was introduced to link this with the receipt of federal money. But the amendment was rejected, and now the city will pay for everything. That is, we are with you.
An even more logical solution - to assign all expenses to Gazprom, which owns Zenit - was not proposed by the deputies at all.

Boris VISHNEVSKY