Fifa pledge to test suspect Russia samples before World Cup

LONDON: Fifa have effectively promised they will investigate suspected Russian doping in football before the 2018 World Cup gets underway — which could decimate an already weak Russia national team.

It will also, inevitably, raise questions as to why the nation is being allowed to host the tournament.

With Russia 2018 chief Vitaly Mutko on the verge of being forced out of his position because of his life ban from the Olympics, over his role in an institutional and national doping conspiracy, Fifa’s pledge to investigate football doping in the new year is a significant breakthrough.

Fifa are to request that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) allow them priority access to new testing, which has been developed to establish beyond doubt whether Russian government security officials (FSB) tampered with sample bottles to ensure their sportsmen and women could take performanceenhancing drugs with impunity.

The test can show whether bottles were opened illegally, which is an offence.

Winter sports have been prioritised for the new tests in anticipation of February's Winter Olympics at PyeongChang, South Korea.

But Professor Richard McLaren, who investigated Russian doping for Wada, has identified 34 football samples which ‘might potentially have benefited from manipulation’, including every member of Russia’s 2014 World Cup squad.

Fifa want those suspect samples tested next month.

A spokesperson said: “Fifa has formally requested Wada to be given priority for this forensic analysis of stored samples.

“In its answer, Wada informed Fifa that the order of priority will be made by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) expert team.”

The pressure on experts to ensure football samples are prioritised means analysis would have to be completed swiftly and any charges or bans imposed prior to the finals.

If tests are found to have been manipulated it risks weakening an already poor Russia team, though for credibility and integrity it seems impossible that Fifa can stall the analysis until after the World Cup.

Last week, Fifa was forced to deny that the removal of their previous anti-doping expert, Professor Jiri Dvorak, was related to his own investigations into doping in Russian football and said such claims were ‘completely baseless’.

The departure of Dvorak means the principal anti-doping expert left working for Fifa is Martial Saugy, who worked as a consultant to the Sochi laboratory at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Fifa said Saugy is ‘neither a Fifa employee nor the principle anti-doping expert at Fifa’. However, Fifa has not yet identified to The Mail on Sunday who their principal anti-doping expert is and who would oversee the Russia probe. Daily Mail