By Andrew Warshaw
March 7 – The humiliation of Vitaly Mutko, for years one of FIFA’s most influential administrators, is complete after it was confirmed that the once all-powerful Russian football supremo has been forced to relinquish his last remaining role with the World Cup this summer.
In December Mutko, Russia’s deputy prime minister who had already been removed from the ruling FIFA Council because of a conflict of interest, stepped down as chief organiser of the World Cup and temporarily handed over leadership of the local organising committee of the World Cup to its CEO Alexey Sorokin. Two days previously he relinquished his role as president of the Russian Football Union (RFU) following mounting global criticism of his alleged involvement in the Russian doping scandal.
He maintained he would continue to be involved in planning for the June 14-July 15 tournament but now it has been announced, as Russia marks the 100-day countdown to kick-off, that he will no longer have governmental responsibility for the World Cup.
Another deputy minister, Arkady Dvorkovich, has been appointed chairman of the local organising committee and will coordinate the tournament at a government level, FIFA and Russian officials said.
FIFA said it would work “on all operational matters” with Dvorkovich and Sorokin, who had previously been announced as Mutko’s replacement as chairman.
Although Mutko has been banned for life from the Olympics, he has not faced any footballing sanctions even though Grigory Rodchenkov, the whistleblower behind the state-sponsored doping allegations, last week told the Associated Press that the former Sports Minister issued orders to cover up doping in football.
Rodchenkov, former director of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory that oversaw drug testing at the 2014 winter Olympic Games in Sochi, claimed an instruction to “avoid any scandal” came from Mutko, ensuring that “Russian footballers were immune from doping-control actions or sanctions.”
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