If you’re feeling critical, it’s easy enough to find problems in the preparations for a World Cup. In seemingly any host nation, journalists and academics alike find ripe fruit in bribery and corruption scandals, tales of misused funds and human rights violations, busted budgets, and the sad parade of white elephant stadiums.

In this, unfortunately, developments in Russia for the 2018 World Cup are no exception. But what I find interesting in recent Russian news is a tricky maneuver that occurred during FIFA president Gianni Infantino‘s recent visit to Russia. He met with President Putin, of course, and it was all smiles as they met beaming volunteers, adorable children in football gear, and toured various impressive-looking facilities. The article I’m talking about is from Rossiskaya Gazeta, a good news source for the Official Government Line, and you can find it here. It quotes Infantino as saying: “I was always convinced that Russia would fulfil its obligations, and now we’re seeing the concrete facts. Therefore, if anyone had any doubts, well, the result is now right in front of you… In Krasnodar, we saw the most modern facilities for the development of football. This is not only the beautiful stadium, but the entire territory, a school where children can study, and other sporting infrastructure.”

Indeed, Krasnodar’s football stadium is both modern and beautiful, and they say it fulfils all FIFA and UEFA requirements.

In fact, there’s only one problem with this setup: Krasnodar isn’t a host city.