By Andrew Warshaw
January 23 – Russia’s under-fire senior football powerbroker Vitaly Mutko, allegedly caught up in the country’s damning doping scandal, reportedly ignored a private request from FIFA president Gianni Infantino to withdraw from the spotlight.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister and head of the 2018 World Cup organising committee is one of those cited in the infamous McLaren report, yet has still put his name forward as one of Europe’s representatives to the FIFA Council at elections to be held in April.
But according to the Mail on Sunday Infantino wants the former Russian sports minister, who is also president of the Russian Football Union (RFU) and is accused of allegedly playing an active role in the doping scandal, to relinquish his various roles in football administration.
The paper quotes unnamed sources as saying that Infantino telephoned him last September shortly before he was re-elected as head of the RFU.
“There was a clear message that Mr Mutko’s ongoing involvement at administrative level was a potential embarrassment to FIFA,” a Moscow source was quoted as saying.
The paper said Mutko ignored Infantino’s plea, paving the way for him to carry on being at the forefront of football administration despite the awkward negative publicity over Russia’s World Cup preparations – and, just as importantly, the knock-on effect in terms of FIFA’s global image under Infantino.
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