World Cup 2018 chief Vitaly Mutko 'complicit' in Russian doping scandal
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Updated 09/11/2015 at 15:14 GMT
FIFA executive committee member Vitaly Mutko, the man in charge of the 2018 World Cup, “knew what was going on” in Russia’s extensive doping programme, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko attending a news conference
Image credit: AFP
WADA published a shocking 350-page report on Monday which lays bare what chairman Dick Pound described as “state-sponsored doping” in Russia.
[REPORT CLAIMS: London 2012 'sabotaged' says scathing report into Russia doping]
WADA has recommended that the IAAF suspend Russia from competition and has said the country should not be permitted to take part in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.
The WADA report outlines extensive governmental involvement in a huge doping cover up in Russia, with an anti-doping lab found to have destroyed over 1,400 samples in one incident.
And at a press conference, Pound said that Russian sports minister Mutko “knew what was going on”.
“It was not possible for him to be unaware of it," he added. "And if he was aware of it then he was complicit in it.”
Mutko, 56, is the chairman of the 2018 World Cup local organising committee and sits on FIFA’s executive committee.
He was interviewed as part of the independent commission’s report at the hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich on September 22. He was there on FIFA business.
The WADA report adds: “Alexey Sorokin, the CEO of the Russian Local Organising Committee for the World Cup attended along with an interpreter.”
In the report, WADA explains how Mutko was “disgusted with the whistleblowers [who first aired claims of Russia corruption], [and] does not believe their allegations.”
British MP Damian Collins, who is a member of the sport committee, called for Mutko to be removed from duty over the claims.
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