TESTS & DRUGS & RUSSIAN ROLE
Fears grow for next summer after new doping allegations
RUSSIA is battling to deal with another blow to its suitability to host next summer’s World Cup.
Less than a year before the tournament kicks off there, claims have emerged that the entire Russia squad at the 2014 competition was involved in state-sponsored doping.
All 23 players on the team that crashed out at the group stage three years ago in Brazil are being investigated as part of a broader scandal.
Russian deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko – the man who claimed the country has already cleaned up racism and hooliganism – has gone on a similar offensive over the doping claims.
“There have never been and will never be any problems with doping in our football,” said Mutko (right). “Our teams are permanently being tested, they undergo doping tests after every match.
“They have written some sort of nonsense. Don’t bother reading the English newspapers in the morning.”
FIFA, however, are carrying on with their investigation into the McLaren report, which claims at least 30 Russian sports, including football, covered up samples involving more than 1,000 athletes between 2011 and 2015. So far nobody from the World Cup has returned a positive test, but a FIFA spokesman said: “In close collaboration with Wada (World Anti-Doping Agency), FIFA is still investigating the allegations involving football players in the so-called McLaren report. “However, FIFA did not refer to any particular players, since it cannot comment on the status of ongoing investigations.” The second of two McLaren reports, led by Canadian law professor and sports lawyer Dr Richard McLaren, was published in December 2016.
It alleged that Russian authorities assisted athletes taking banned drugs by swapping positive samples for clean ones. For the Russians the latest embarrassment
follows several others in their sport.
Most of their track-and-field team was banned from last year’s Olympics in Rio over doping. The spectre of doping also lingered over their 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Claims of bribery persist, while few are convinced that the Russians have hooliganism, which threatens to flare up next summer, under control.
Five of the players from the 2014 squad are in the team that have been competing at this week’s Confederations Cup. Russia, the hosts were eliminated on Saturday after losing to Mexico.
FIFA added: “As far as the Confederations Cup is concerned, every participating player has been tested through blood and urine. Both the results of the unannounced and the post-match tests have been negative so far.”