New drug claims cast World Cup shadow
Whistleblower says squad were in Russia’s doping programme
THE glittering FIFA World Cup draw at the Kremlin next week, intended as a showcase for Russia, will be overshadowed by fresh drug-taking revelations.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal allegations that the host nation’s World Cup squad were part of statesponsored doping, with the chairman of the World Cup organising committee, Vitaly Mutko, also embroiled in the scandal.
The new evidence comes from whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, former head of the Moscow antidoping laboratory who simultaneously ran a doping programme for Russian athletes, and it will implicate some members of their World Cup squad.
Rod chenkov’ s lawyer, Jim Walden, has revealed that his client has told investigators working for the International Olympic Committee that Mutko, who is also Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister and in charge of the World Cup, was caught up in the doping scandal. He also said that FIFA had not yet attempted to speak to the whistleblower about his allegations. Asked if Rodchenkov, currently in US witness protection after fleeing Russia, would share his evidence with FIFA, Walden said: ‘Yes … my phone is on, and my email is on.’
Russia are already on the verge of being kicked out of the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, such is the weight of evidence of systematic doping amassed by the IOC.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino will come under fresh scrutiny in Moscow as to how a nation likely to be banned from Olympic sport can host football’s showpiece, how Mutko can still be chairman of Russia 2018, and why they have not yet attempted to contact Rodchenkov.
The Mail on Sunday have also learned that the World Anti-Doping Agency last week wrote to FIFA and other sports federations offering a means to contact Rodchenkov. FULL STORY PAGES 12-13
FIFA are under fresh pressure to investigate which Russian international footballers were implicated in the national doping scandal.
It comes after the World Anti-Doping Agency wrote to football’s global governing body offering to act as a go-between so that a key witness can provide evidence. WADA have written to FIFA and other affected international federations reminding them of their responsibility to pursue doping cases against implicated Russian athletes. They also offered to put them in contact with Russian whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory — in reality, the hub of Russia’s doping network.
Rodchenkov, who is in witness protection in the US having fled Russia in fear of his life, has offered to help federations build cases against athletes.
WADA will provide the means for FIFA and other federations to contact Rodchenkov and use his testimony as evidence in anti-doping cases.
More evidence will be provided from databases which WADA extracted from the Moscow lab this month. That is expected to further corroborate that hundreds of Russian
athletes were doping. The problem for FIFA is that Russia is hosting the 2018 World Cup, which starts in June. The IOC will meet on December 5 to discuss the evidence gathered by two commissions looking into Russian doping and look likely to ban Russia from February’s Winter Olympics in South Korea.