Russia’s World Cup chief Mutko barred from Fifa re-election bid
>> ZURICH: Russia’s World Cup head Vitaly Mutko has been barred from seeking re-election to Fifa’s top decision-making body after failing an eligibility check.
Fifa’s review committee has ruled that Mutko can no longer sit on the Fifa Council because of his role as a deputy prime minister of Russia, people familiar with the decision told The Associated Press. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the eligibility checks on Mutko, who confirmed the decision later yesterday.
Mutko’s exclusion from the election is due to a clampdown on government interference in football rather than a separate, ongoing Fifa ethics examination of a World Anti-Doping Agency report that implicates him in Russia’s doping cover-ups.
Mutko, who is also president of Russia’s football federation, said he will not mount an appeal against Fifa’s decision to exclude him from the April 5 election.
“I wanted to get re-elected, but Fifa has changed its criteria,” Mutko said in comments carried by the Tass news agency.
“A new criterion has been introduced: political neutrality. They want the organisation to be politically neutral, so that officials and representatives of the government don’t get elected, and that’s their right.’’
Mutko will lose the position on Fifa’s ruling body, which he has held since 2009, just as Russia prepares to host the Confederations Cup in three months as the warm-up event for the 2018 World Cup.
Now four men are in line for four European places at the Uefa Congress next month: Sandor Csanyi, a current Uefa executive committee member from Hungary; Geir Thorsteinsson, president of Iceland’s football federation; former AC Milan player Dejan Savicevic, Montenegro’s federation president; and Costakis Koutsokoumnis, the Cyprus federation president.
Fifa has long prohibited government interference in how member federations run their own affairs, but Mutko has had multi-task status as head of the World Cup preparations, Russian federation and Fifa Council member for several years.
Mukto was sports minister when he formally joined Fifa’s executive committee, the precursor to the council, in 2009. That was the same day Fifa’s congress approved stricter new rules protecting member federations and football officials from government meddling.
Mutko’s re-election bid has now been thwarted by a more exacting interpretation of Fifa rules restricting “political interference’’ by the new review committee assessing the eligibility of officials for top posts headed by former Portuguese government minister Miguel Poiares Maduro.