Russia’s length as a nation would create discomfort for the spectators in World Cup as they would have to cover a little too much distance at times to watch games.
Not only the spectators, the players too would be on the journey a lot more which would be highly exhausting.
The area of Russia is bigger than any other nation. A portion of it falls in Asia, while, rest falls in Europe and the games have been deliberately slotted in the latter portion as the spectators would generally be from Europe only. However, even that European portion is a little too big.
Only a few cities have advanced train system, while, in most of the others, the trains are still old, running at a much lower pace which means in order to catch all the games, you have to take the aerial means of transportation and that would only add to your cost.
Another issue is security. While the terrorist activities within Russia have not been frequent in the last couple of years and the foreigners would be slightly lesser worried regarding that, what would be worrying them more is the behaviour of the local supporters who don’t shy away from violence as they proved recently during Euro.
If they are daring enough to attack others on foreign soil, they would not require much of a provocation to do that inside their own surroundings and apart from violence, the Russians are known for getting racial too. Quite a few players employed in the top tier Football in Russia have been the victims of racial abuses and some have even protested on occasions.
Also, the fact that rather than being apologetic Moscow was actually mocking and suggesting the falseness of the Euro story would only make people more fearful and they would seriously re-think about their plans of buying the ticket to Russia.