By Andrew Warshaw
March 13 – Russian commentators and former football chiefs have reacted with outrage at Vitaly Mutko being barred from standing for re-election to FIFA’s ruling council.
FIFA’s review committee announced last week that Mutko had failed an eligibility test to become a European candidate because of a conflict of interest over his roles as both a sporting and political supremo.
As well as being deputy prime minister, Mutko is also head of the Russian Football Union and runs the organising committee for the 2018 World Cup, but will no longer have a place on FIFA’s top table for the first time in eight years because of FIFA rules over political interference in football.
“A big country is pushed to the fringes of world football,” declared former Russian FIFA vice president Vyacheslav Koloskov, who was very much one of FIFA’s old school powerbrokers in the Sepp Blatter era.
“The World Cup in Russia is almost upon us and yet now we will not have a representative on FIFA’s governing body. It’s nonsense.”
Mutko, who many thought was untouchable at the heart of FIFA’s decision-making process despite his seemingly conflicting positions, said on Friday that he will not appeal against the decision.
But his removal cannot be under-estimated with several Russian media outlets speculating that the decision to bar him was undoubtedly linked with his alleged role in the Russian doping scandal even though this was not cited by FIFA.
The state news portal Sputnik claimed an “Anglo-Saxon conspiracy” had been put in place in order to disturb preparations for the World Cup and even force the country to be stripped of hosting rights while Koloskov bemoaned the fact that Russia will lose the opportunity to “influence the processes that take place in world football.”
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