FIFA is investigating Russian Deputy PM Vitaly Mutko over "his alleged role in the state-sponsored doping scandal" in a move that "could lead to the most explosive disciplinary process in global sport," according to Nick Harris of the London DAILY MAIL. Richard McLaren's doping report cites Mutko "numerous times as having direct involvement in institutional doping and cover-ups, including in football cases." Mutko is not just a serving member of FIFA's exec committee. He is also the president of Russia's FA. The investigative chamber of FIFA's ethics committee has opened "a preliminary investigation and if they succeed in prosecuting an ethics violations case against Mutko, he would be kicked out of FIFA and barred from football." The matter is so "sensitive that the ethics committee is wary of publicly confirming a probe against Mutko is under way." Legal sources close to FIFA have confirmed the ethics committee has already made "direct approaches" to McLaren and the World Anti-Doping Agency "to obtain the kind of hard documentary evidence implicating Mutko that would be necessary to secure an ethics conviction" (DAILY MAIL, 12/17).
