In a previous column from June 14, I claimed that the World Cup is the greatest event in sports.
So far, the Russia 2018 installment has not disappointed. Germany’s elimination in the group stage and the advancement of Japan over Senegal on FIFA’s fair play tiebreaker provided two historical occurrences.
Unfortunately, the World Cup’s biggest storyline, the host nation of Russia upsetting Spain and moving on to the quarterfinals, may be tainted with the wrongdoings of the host country and the organization presiding over the festivities.
Recent articles from the UK publication Daily Mail have uncovered doping scandals among Russian soccer players. On Sunday, shortly after No. 70-ranked Russia defeated No. 10 Spain in the round of 16, the Mail reported that Russian star Denis Cheryshev’s father, Dimitri, said that his son was injected with “growth hormones.” The 27-year-old Cheryshev denied ever using performance-enhancing drugs, but the prospect that Russian players used banned substances could destroy the validity of the entire 2018 tournament.
And apparently, FIFA has known about many of these scandals for over a year, but hasn’t made any disciplinary actions.
This, of course, would not be the first time the Russian Sports Ministry and FIFA have been involved in major scandals. Obviously, Russian olympians have a history of taking performance-enhancing substances, and FIFA has been riddled with corruption, which contributed in awarding the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
However, more doping violations by Russian athletes should affect their ability to participate in world events like World Cup and Olympics and the country’s ability host them. It’s obvious that FIFA decided not to act because it didn’t want to negatively affect its greatest revenue-building tournament, as accentuated by Richard Pound, former head of the WADA.
“They have the matter of billions of dollars at stake in having a hassle-free World Cup,” Pound said to the Mail.
On June 23, the Daily Mail reported on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation in the Russian Football Association and Sports Ministry.
Eighteen months ago, the WADA cited 155 cases of doping among Russian soccer players, 34 of which had accompanying paperwork and testimony that the agency deemed useful for formal disciplinary proceedings and were brought to FIFA. Twenty-three of those 34 were connected to players on Russia’s 2014 World Cup squad.
One case involves Russian international Ruslan Kambolov, who tested positive for a banned steroid in May 2015. The test failure was apparently covered up by Russian intelligence forces, which switched out Kambolov’s tainted sample with the urine of another athlete.
Despite all of this information, FIFA has not acted on anything provided by the WADA, claiming there’s insufficient evidence to prosecute Russian players.
If Russian players in fact used banned substances to bolster the team’s performance at this World Cup, it would be bigger than any previous scandal that the Russian Sports Ministry or FIFA have ever been involved with. FIFA’s lack of involvement in a situation with so many red flags shows that nothing has really changed since the organization’s president Gianni Infantino was elected to replace the corrupt Sepp Blatter administration.
Mark Stine is sports writer. You can follow him on Twitter @mstinejr or contact him at mstine@alligator.org.
