RUSSIA ARE IN DENIAL OVER DOPING PROBE

RUSSIA’S deputy prime minister Vitaly Mutko attempted to laugh off a FIFA doping investigation into the country’s entire 2014 World Cup squad, despite evidence that the players may have benefited from state-sponsored cheating.

Five members of Russia’s Confederations Cup team, who were eliminated at the group stage, are among the players ‘of interest’ to doping authorities, according to a Mail on

Sunday investigation. They include formermer Chelsea defender Yuri Zhirkov.

The investigation draws on evidence made public by Canadian sports lawyer Richard McLaren, who last year revealed a regime of Russian state-sponsored doping.

Sportsmail can reveal that one of the documents published by McLaren mentions ‘ football, training camp’.

It details a ‘ collection’ on March 5, 2013, of samples to be ‘delivered to the lab’ on March 12. Beneath is the word Furosemide — a drug on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned list, due to concerns that it may mask other drugs.

FIFA confirmed it is investigating allegations about Russian football, but Mutko tried to brush them off.

‘There have never been and will never be any problems with doping in our football. Our team are permanently being tested, they undergo doping tests after every match,’ he said.

The players came to McLaren’s attention because of irregularities with a number of urine samples, though there is no proof of any anti-doping violations.

Nearly a year after McLaren’s revelations, not a single sport’s world governing body has revealed whether it has disciplined individual athletes.

FIFA refuse to say when it might have examined the urine samples of footballers which were seized from Russia in 2015.