By Samindra Kunti in Kazan
June 29 – FIFA’s secretary-general Fatma Samoura has said the governing body wants to eradicate doping in the game. Samoura also welcomed the publication of the Garcia report.
Samoura delivered the keynote address at the Football for Hope Forum in Kazan, Russia, before the semi-final of the Confederations Cup that saw Chile beat Portugal on penalties. “There is something particularly touching when so many different people gather to promote social development,” said Samoura to an audience that included ‘FIFA Legends’ Karina LeBlanc and Alexey Smertin. “To look for the best way to transform the lives of those who need it the most.”
But in these turbulent times for FIFA, the PR chutzpah took a back seat as Samoura was queried on the sidelines of the forum by the international media.
Earlier this week newspaper reports claimed that all 23 members of Russia’s 2014 World Cup squad were under investigation for alleged drug offenses, with FIFA confirming that is investigating football players whose names appeared in the McClaren report.
German broadcaster ARD highlighted that 155 samples relating to Russian footballers have been handed to FIFA and Germany head coach Joachim Low stated on Wednesday that those under suspicion should be named.
“I think we have expressed our position,” said Samoura. “The investigations are ongoing. We are fully collaborating with WADA and until we get a final decision from the laboratory, we cannot elaborate.”
“But definitely our policy is a zero-tolerance policy for doping, not only for Russia but across the world,” continued Samoura. “Hopefully this [doping] will be something that can be terminated so that we can start focusing on healthy football.”
“We have the report from WADA but we’re not supposed to be disclosing any names,” added Samoura.
FIFA’s secretary-general also commented on the release of the Garcia report. “We welcome the decision taken to publish the Garcia report for the sake of transparency,” said Samoura.
“The decision to stage the World Cup in Russia and Qatar was taken by previous management,” stated Samoura. “There is no solid ground to really question the adjudication [validity] of these two World Cups to Russia and Qatar.”
Both Russia and Qatar were found to not have broken the rules in the Garcia report, which offered no smoking gun, but an in-depth portrait of greedy FIFA executive committee members and grasping bid committees stretching and breaking the poorly-policed rules beyond their limits.
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