June 26 – Russian deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko blasted newspaper reports that Russia’s 2014 World Cup squad is under investigation for doping as part of the McLaren report as “nonsense”.
In an interview with state news agency TASS, Mutko said: “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.”
The news that Russian players are being probed by FIFA as part of a broader scandal over allegations of state-backed doping in the country, plunged Russian football into a media furore it could have done without. FIFA says “it is still investigating allegations” that football players were involved in a state-sponsored doping programme in Russia.
The McLaren report disclosed a network of state-sponsored doping, involving at least 30 sports and 1,000 athletes between 2011 and 2015.
“FIFA has simply confirmed that, in close collaboration with WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency), it is still investigating the allegations involving football players in the so-called McLaren report,” said a FIFA spokesman. “However, FIFA did not refer to any particular players, since it cannot comment on the status of ongoing investigations.”
But FIFA said that samples taken from players at the 2014 World Cup, including the full Russian squad, were sent to a Wada-accredited laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland. The governing body stressed that the same procedure is being applied during the Confederations Cup.
“As far as the FIFA Confederations Cup is concerned, every participating player has been tested through blood and urine in unannounced controls,” added FIFA. “Both the results of the unannounced and the post-match tests have been negative so far.”
In December 2016 a second of two McLaren reports, led by Canadian law professor and sports lawyer Dr Richard McLaren, was published, alleging that Russian authorities assisted athletes taking banned drugs by swapping their positive samples for clean ones.
At the 2014 World Cup Russia were eliminated at the group stages. This weekend they crashed out of the Confederations Cup following a 2-1 defeat by Mexico.
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