Russian minister Mutko barred from FIFA re-election: sources
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[March 10, 2017]
By Brian Homewood
ZURICH (Reuters) - Russian deputy prime
minister Vitaly Mutko has been barred from standing for re-election
for a place on the FIFA Council, sources close to the matter told
Reuters on Friday.
The sources said that Mutko, who is also head of the Russian
Football Union (RFU), had failed an eligibility test carried out by
the FIFA review committee.
The sources said that Mutko had been barred because his ministerial
role contravened the statutes of the global soccer body and that the
decision was not connected to the doping scandal which has engulfed
Russian sport.
Mutko was Russia's Minister of Sport from 2008 until last October,
when he was promoted to his current position.
FIFA and UEFA could not immediately be reached for comment.
Mutko, however, shrugged off the decision, which he said would have
no effect on the World Cup to be staged next year, and said he would
not appeal.
"The committee's decision has no bearing on that," Mutko told the
Russian news agency TASS.
"I wanted to be re-elected but now the FIFA... has somewhat changed
the criteria. A new criteria, political neutrality, has been
introduced. This is their right."
"This is public work, everything is normal," he added
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Russian sport was rocked last year by the publication of the McLaren
report, commission by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which
detailed a system of state-sponsored doping in the country.
It said that Moscow had concealed hundreds of positive doping cases
from a variety of sports, including soccer.
DENIES WRONGDOING
The report said that Russian Deputy Sports Minister Yuri Nagornykh
had decided which athletes would benefit from a cover-up, known as a
SAVE order, although Mutko, it alleged, appeared to make the
decision with regard to footballers.
Nagornykh was dismissed in October.
Mutko, who has denied wrongdoing, was among five candidates for four
four-year term European places on the FIFA Council, which makes the
key strategic decisions for the global soccer body.
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![](../images/031017pics/sports57.jpg)
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko attends a news conference after
a meeting of the management board of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia
local organising committee in Moscow, Russia, July 5, 2016.
REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/File Photo
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The remaining four, who can now be elected unopposed, are Sandor
Csyani (Hungary), Costakis Koutsokoumnis (Cyprus),Dejan Savicevic
(Montenegro) and Geir Thorsteinsson (Iceland).
Mutko, 58, has sat on the Council since 2009, when it was known as
the executive committee.
FIFA insists that the sport remains free of government interference.
Article 23 of the FIFA statutes states that continental
confederation such as UEFA must be "independent and avoid any form
of political interference".
Article 19 also states that "each member association shall manage
its affairs independently and without undue influence from third
parties."
Although this is a long-standing rule, eligibility checks on
candidates for office were only introduced last year in response to
a corruption scandal.
The UEFA elections will take place at the UEFA Congress in Helsinki
on April 5. Germany's Reinhard Grindel is the only candidate for a
further European place, which has a two-year term.
(Additonal reporting by Polina Devitt in Moscow; Editing by Nick
Mulvenney/John O'Brien) [© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All
rights reserved.]
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