Case that proves FIFA secrecy over Russian football doping...

1 Saturday, May 30, 2015: Ruslan Kambolov, then 25, a defender with Rubin Kazan of the Russian Premier League, is selected for a doping test after the team’s 1-1 away league draw at Ufa. His sample tests positive for high levels of the steroid dexamethasone, indicative of recent use of the drug, banned in competition. His sample is given code number 3878295 within the Russian anti-doping system. 2 Wednesday, June 3, 2015: an email from the Russian antidoping testers to sports ministry official Aleksey Velikodny and lab boss Grigory Rodchenkov at 10.30am informs them that a male Russian footballer tested positive for dexamethasone on May 30 ‘significantly over the threshold’. The purpose of this email is to seek guidance on how to ‘handle’ the case. 3 Thursday. June 4, 2015: an email from Velikodny back to the testers and copied to Rodchenkov orders ‘Save’ in regards to Kambolov’s sample; ‘Save’ has been established as the code phrase for ‘cover it up’. 4 Two documents recovered during Prof Richard McLaren’s probe into Russian doping show how sample 3878295 was most similar in ‘profile’ to three samples stored within Russia’s 10,000-sample ‘clean urine bank’ amassed to keep the state-sponsored doping and cover-up system working. Those three samples came from a track and field athlete, a modern pentathlete (the closest match) and a weightlifter. 5 On Wednesday, June 10, diaries from Rodchenkov say that a Russian FSB officer Evgeny Blokhin arrives to oversee the urine swap. Rodchenkov testified Blokhin was the same FSB officer who oversaw urine swapping at the Sochi Olympics. Blokhin did not swap the urine but Rodchenkov’s diary says he oversaw ‘magicians who performed tricks’ to open Kambolov’s sample bottle, swap it and replace the lid. 6 FIFA knew nothing of this or other Russian football doping cases of the period because they were covered up. But when the plot was exposed, FIFA were given evidence from 2016. FIFA never explained how their probe worked but it is believed they cleared Kambolov and took no action over the cover-up.