As Russia welcomes 31 teams and approximately a million visitors for the world’s largest sporting event – it drew 3.2 billion viewers at its last edition in 2014 – analysts and experts tell The Straits Times that this is not just another football event.

James Dorsey, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, felt that a successful staging of the World Cup could help increase Russia’s soft power.

He told ST: “If the Russians pull this off well, it will benefit them and you will have a whole host of people, countries and institutions – because of their political alliances – praising Russia to high heaven.

“Their slate is not going to be wiped clean by the World Cup.

“But the Russians will probably do well in that one not unimportant segment of international public opinion.”