February 9 – FIFA is investigating two Russian footballers, Ruslan Kambolov and Ivan Knyazev, on suspicion of violating anti-doping regulations, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko has admitted.
Mutko, who recently lost his job as head of World Cup operations and Russian Football Union boss after mounting global criticism of his alleged involvement in the Russian doping scandal, told TASS that the case was “not linked to the national team.”
But Kambolov has played twice for Russia, once in 2015 and once in a June 2017 friendly against Chile.
Mutko has refuted all allegations of state-sponsored doping which, according to Canadian law professor Dr Richard McLaren’s explosive report that sparked the crisis, included 33 footballers.
Last month FIFA confirmed it has questioned whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov. the former Moscow laboratory chief, whose revelations exposed the scandal and Mutko admitted to Tass: “We initially received a list (from FIFA) with a request regarding 11 footballers and now two of them, namely Kambolov and Knyazev, are under an investigation.”
But Mutko insisted that Russian football would contest all doping abuse investigations.
“It looks funny, when our footballers are accused based only on some sort of mail correspondence or diaries of a former head of a (Moscow anti-doping) laboratory,” he said.
“The Russian Football Union set up a task group, conducts its own investigations, questions people, answers all questions and football players are not hiding. We are open, we are cooperating and we proposed the relevant FIFA commission at any convenient time for them to meet and to see what they have.”
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