MUTKO LOSES SPORTS BRIEF

SOCHI, RUSSIA: Russia’s dopingtainted minister Vitaly Mutko lost his sports brief in a new government announced less than one month before the start of the World Cup. Mutko was named as one of the architects of a statesponsored cheating programme among Russian athletes that led to the country being banned from last winter’s Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. He served as sports minister from 2008 until 2016 and oversaw sports as deputy prime minister until Friday. The 59-year-old also played an instrumental role in preparations for the football showpiece Russia is hosting for the first time. President Vladimir Putin approved a new government on Friday in which Mutko kept his deputy prime minister post but was put in charge of construction instead. Mutko had said after Putin’s re-election to a fourth term in March that he would like to continue overseeing sports in the government. “Sport is a part of me -- it lives in my soul and in my heart,” Mutko said on May 9. Russia has denied charges of running a government programme that helped athletes stay clean before and during the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. Whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov -the former head of a Moscow laboratory at the heart of the allegations -- says that dirty doping samples were swapped for clean ones by Russian security service agents. He claims Mutko was overseeing the operation under direct orders from Putin.