June 11, 2018 – An official ceremony opened the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) in Moscow, which was attended by FIFA President Gianni Infantino and many other high profile guests.
Guided by FIFA’s TV broadcast production experts, a tour was held through the IBC which paid a visit to the Video Assistant Refereeing (VAR) room – the core of all VAR operations throughout the tournament. Here, FIFA Refereeing experts Roberto Rosetti and Massimo Busacca held a demonstration with FIFA Football Technology Innovation specialists Johannes Holzmüller and Sebastian Runge. The media was then welcomed by FIFA President Infantino to officially open the IBC for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
“The IBC is the 13th ‘official venue’ of the FIFA World Cup, besides the 12 stadiums; but in terms of audience, it is, in fact, the first. The entire world will be able to benefit from this beautiful and fantastic FIFA World Cup thanks to what is happening here in this IBC. For the best ever FIFA World Cup, we have the best ever IBC as well”, said Infantino.
The Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin, Deputy Mayor of Moscow Alexander Gorbenko, President of the Crocus Group Aras Agalarov, Chairman of the Russian LOC Arkady Dvorkovich and CEO of the LOC Andrey Sorokin also took part in the event.
The Centre will host a broadcast feed where all 64 matches in the competition will be processed, monitored, and transmitted to TVs, radios and digital devices in 219 territories around the world. The Centre will also produce other content such as daily highlights, story features, and promos, and is also the headquarters for all Media Rights Licensees (MRLs) – in other words, all the national and regional broadcasters who have bought the rights to show the FIFA World Cup games.
In addition to the 78 MRLs at the IBC, there are also 13 outside studios on Moscow’s Red Square.
All photos by Slobodan Kadić
