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Just months ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, the host nations Russian Football Union chief Vitaly Mutko has temporarily resigned from his post for six months to clear his name in an upcoming litigation over his lifetime Olympic ban by the IOC.
During his temporary RFU leave, Mutko will be replaced at the helm of the RFU by its General Secretary Alexander Aliev.
In his defence against the lifetime ban by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed on December 5 amid allegations of his involvement in a state-sponsored Russian doping program. Mutko had said, “Nobody accused me in those reports. It just so happened to be that all the responsibility has been on me since the 2010 Vancouver Games. And I, as minister of sports of that time, was banned from attending Olympics.”
Meanwhile Mutko will remain the head of the LOC (Local Organising Committee) of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, but he stated that he was ready to quit his post as the head of the 2018 FIFA World Cup LOC but that decision would be up to the higher Russian authorities.
This keeps the situation tricky for world football governing body FIFA as the IOC is putting pressure on them to not involve anyone from Russia in the 2018 FIFA World Cup implicated in the Russian Doping scandal.
For Russia organising large sporting events like the 2018 FIFA World Cup is of big national prestige and the hope is in Russia it will not end in a fiasco just like the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, which has lead to Russia as a nation being unable to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics due to state sponsored and organised doping.
