Grigory Rodchenkov claims at least one member of Russia’s World Cup squad is a drugs cheat
Rodchenkov says Fifa had ignored his evidence that Russia’s state sponsored doping programme included football
AT LEAST one member of the Russia World Cup squad is a drugs cheat, according to sport’s most notorious doping whistleblower.
Grigory Rodchenkov told the Foundation for Sports Integrity launch event in London that Fifa had ignored his evidence that Russia’s state-sponsored doping programme included football.
Rodchenkov, who spoke wearing a mask via a video link from the USA where he is under a witness protection programme, revealed at least one of the 34 players whose positive tests he helped cover up is in Russia’s Finals squad.
The 59-year-old former head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory which covered up Russia’s cheating at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics said: “Vitaly Mutko, who was our Sports Minister and head of the Russian Football Union came to me.
“He made it clear: ‘Football must be protected. Don’t touch football players. If you have any problems report to me immediately’.
“There were 34 footballers who tested positive for costicosteroids, from all levels. These positives ‘disappeared’.
“One of those players is in the Russia squad for the World Cup.
“But I do not know who all the players were. Some of them only identified by numbers – they were not even available for me.”
Rodchenkov quit the laboratory and fled to the USA in 2016 when he turned whistle-blower over Russia’s programme.
Last week, Fifa announced that the 34 samples identified by Rodchenkov had been “re-tested” and found to be clean by an approved laboratory in Lausanne.
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Rodchenkov revealed: “I received a list of questions from Fifa, 60 of them.
“I didn’t have detailed information for some but I answered all of the questions. Seemingly Fifa were satisfied and there were no follow-up questions.
“The Lausanne lab is highly professional. If Fifa say it was clean it means negative. But they don’t disclose the full analysis.
“I do not believe there will be doping in Russia this summer. There will be no doping control experts from Russia. It should be clean.
“But in competitions people are clean. The most wrong things are done before major events.
“At elite level, football is exposed to testing or train in camps where are exposed to coping control and have no chance to pass a sophisticated or complicated doping scheme.
“High level footballers have agents and experts around them and they try to keep them clean because doping will ruin their careers.
“But I was part of what was a shocking, absolutely deliberate state programme. I did everything to destroy the evidence and cleared the files.
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“There are millions of football lovers. Those 34 names were over the years across different teams. It’s very important that they are still being investigated
because we had initial tests but then the procedure was stopped and reported negative.”
Foundation chairman Jaimie Fuller, who produced further evidence to suggest the decision to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup should be re-opened, said: “We want sport to be an example to society.”