World Cups 2018 and 2022: Russian and Qatari reaction

Russia and Qatar have been chosen to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals after a secret ballot of Fifa's 22 executive members in Zurich.

Russia was selected, external ahead of co-bidders Spain-Portugal and Holland-Belgium, as well as England, who won only two votes, while Qatar edged out rivals Australia, the US, South Korea and Japan.

Readers in both countries have been reacting to the decisions and discussing the challenges ahead. Here is a selection of their comments sent to the BBC News website and BBC Russian.com.

Football is the world's most popular game. Russia is the world's largest country. This will be the first World Cup in Eurasia! It is only fair. Our fans are just as sincere as the Brazilian ones or the English ones. As for stadiums and chic hotels, we will build them. Nikolai, Pushkino

Why do we need this championship? I think the upcoming Sochi Olympics is plenty for us - so much money has been invested into it. It would be better if they built new nurseries or raised the level of education. Maybe then ordinary people would have better standards of living. Anatoly, Krasnoyarsk

I am so happy for Russia! But I'd like to say to the English, keep your chins up! Arkady, St Petersburg

For Russia this is another black hole into which money will disappear. We've hardly got any stadiums ready, we don't have enough hotels in Moscow or in St Petersburg. Andrey, Yekaterinburg

Oil money and Fifa's policy to expand the geography of the World Cup and hold championships in new countries such as South Africa have played into Russia's hands. FIFA's decision did not surprise me. The following people will benefit from Fifa's decision in Russia: land speculators, airlines, railways and hotel owners. Ordinary people will pay for this triumph. Aleksey M, St Petersburg

World Cup in Russia! That's fantastic! We couldn't even have dreamt of this in the 1990s! Vladimir, St Petersburg

Congratulations to everyone! This is terrific. But unfortunately it is the ordinary folk who will have to pick up the bill. Ruslan, Ufa

I am against holding the World Cup in Russia but since we have been so lucky now we need to think about who will play for our national team - we have eight years to prepare world class footballers. Petr

Guys, it is so cool that this championship is coming to our land! Let's be merry for once - we can talk about the homeless and corruption in Russia later. I have just heard on TV though that only one stadium is ready for the World Cup so far - Luzhniki in Moscow. Roman Andreevich, Yaroslavl

Fifa has made an amazingly fair decision. My congratulations to all Russians and to Qatar! Dmitry, Yaroslavl

The Qatari bid was fascinating to everybody in spite of a few reservations made earlier by some Fifa members. It is definitely the time for an Arab state to host the World Cup, ending the domination of Europe and the Americas over world footballing events. Ahmad Al Ansari, Doha

Congrats Qatar, but Qatar has a long way to go before it can host this tournament. Qatar is a country made of more than 50% temporary immigrants or labour work force who could hardly afford to see football live. Qatar is still in category three on labour rights, the ranking means government is not bothered about labour legislation and does not intend to take any action in the near future.

Half of Qatar's population is under modern slavery where they have to be under the visa sponsorship of Qataris or companies based here. Qatar has not promised any relaxations to its existing structure addressing 50% of the population, nor has Fifa been interested in asking any questions about its social and imperial legislation.

Unless there is clear action on these social issues by Qatar, Fifa's decision can only be considered as a western lobby to divert the profits of Qatar's gas sales into western revenues in the name of building infrastructure which would only serve as monuments to dead assets after the World Cup. Sridhar, Doha

Congratulation to Qatar in their bid to host world cup 2022. I heard the celebrations taking place from my apartment, drivers were hooting away like crazy. A real shame that England lost out to Russia. We all thought that England would win the 2018 bid. At least I can join in on the celebrations of Qatar's win. Imran Ali, Doha