Russia spared little expense in completely revamping or building from scratch 12 football-specific arenas for the June 14 to July 15 showpiece.
Yet only the one in Saint Peterburg has a retractable roof. All the others are open to the elements and Premier League chief Sergei Pryadkin is not pleased.
"When we were holding test matches in the new stadiums, I kept asking myself; Why didn't they put roofs on them? This is a question for those who were designing them," Pryadkin told a press conference.
Pryadkin's comments marked the most explicit public criticism of Russia's preparations for its first World Cup to date. Russian football has suffered for generations from horrible pitches that are either covered in snow during winter or resemble sandpits in the spring and fall.
The northern climate prompted the Soviet Union and then Russia to build indoor arenas with synthetic grass in many of the cities where football professionally played. But there are now used solely for training because Premier League - looking to adopt international standards - only allows games on real grass.
Deputy Prime Minister Vitally Mutko last week suggested lifting the indoor arena ban.
"Why did we build them then?" Mutko asked.
The authorities have tried to get around the problem by shutting down the season for nearly three months in the winter to let all the snow melt.
Yet players complain that this fails to address the issue of pitches not having suitable grass in other times of the year.
Russia is believed to have spent at least $4 billion on the stadium construction and refurbishment for the World Cup. "Well it's good we now have a good arenas, even though they have no roofs," he said. "When they were building the stadium, no one asked for our advice."
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