Fifa opens cases against three Russian players for suspected doping violations
Fifa has opened disciplinary cases against three Russian footballers for suspected doping violations in 2013, the Russian Football Union reportedly said on Monday.
The report from the Interfax news agency did not identify the footballers but said two of them were men and one was a woman. It said none of the three players had been capped for Russia’s senior national teams.
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“The Russian Football Union received information from Fifa about the opening of disciplinary cases,” the union was quoted as saying. Fifa, the governing body of world football, is yet to comment officially on the reports.
Russian sport has been dogged by doping allegations for several years. A 2015 report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) found evidence of mass doping among Russia’s track and field athletes.
Their athletes are barred from competing at major international events, including the Olympics, under the country’s flag until December 2022. The sanction was imposed for providing Wada with doctored laboratory data that could have otherwise helped identify drug cheats.
Russia’s ban was reduced from four years to two after an appeal to the court of arbitration for sport. While the country remains banned from this year’s Olympics and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, Russian athletes can compete as neutrals.