Russia basks in a World Cup even MI6 could not deny Vladimir Putin| David Conn

Hosts are hoping to clean up their image eight years after trouncing England in a controversial voteAs the World Cup finally dawns in the east, many of the Football Association chiefs packing their wheelie suitcases for Russia will have been reflecting wistfully that this was the tournament they bid for Fifa to locate in England, and lost. When the vote was taken in December 2010, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, famously arrived nonchalantly in Zurich to collect his prize, and now the