Greg Dyke calls for Vitaly Mutko ban

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 10 November 2015

FA chairman Greg Dyke calls on FIFA to consider banning executive committee member and Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko in the wake of the Russian doping scandal.

Football Association chairman Greg Dyke has called on FIFA to look at banning Vitaly Mutko in the wake of the Russian doping scandal.

Mutko, who is the Russian sports minister and a FIFA executive member, was criticised in a report by the World Anti-Doping Agency which revealed that 1,417 samples were destroyed on the orders of the director of Russia's drug-testing lab.

Dyke believes that there must be "a question mark" over Mutko's position, and suggested that it could raise speculation surrounding the validity of Russia's 2018 World Cup bid, the organising committee of which Mutko is head of.

"It will be up to FIFA. FIFA will have to decide whether he can stay on the board of FIFA or whether he has to be suspended because of the allegations surrounding athletics," Dyke is quoted as saying by PA.

"Having seen the events of yesterday - I haven't read the report but I've read the reports of the report - whether someone who is involved in all that can stay on the board of FIFA is something FIFA needs to address very quickly. He's head of the organising committee, minister for sport... It's not bad is it? He's got about six jobs.

"It wouldn't be fair for me to have a view because I haven't read the details of the report, but there has to be a question mark. I've not seen any evidence of corruption in the allocation of the Russian World Cup. A lot of very good journalism has been done on whether or not the Qatar World Cup bid was tainted, but I haven't seen it for Russia, but you do wonder."

The chairman of WADA's independent commission has suggested that Russia should be banned from the 2016 Olympics due to the scandal.