FIFA World Cup 2018: Russian team doctor says players cleanest in world
The doctor of Russia’s World Cup team says the country has the cleanest record on the planet when it comes to doping in football.
Eduard Bezuglov said Monday Russian football players had all been clean for years and there were simply no grounds for suspicion against them.
“I do not know of any other sport that does not have a problem with banned drugs. But Russian football does not have this problem,” said Bezuglov.
He added that Russian players had taken “mandatory online courses” held by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) and the Russian Football Union (RFU), saying, “There is no such thing anywhere else in the world.”
The comments come as Russia prepares to host the World Cup for the first time in mid-June.
Russia has been accused of running a state-backed, systematic doping program for years, an allegation Moscow denies. Several Russian athletes have been accused of doping over the past years, which have cost the country two Olympic tournaments.
The world football governing body FIFA has also launched an investigation into similar allegations affecting Russian football players after former Moscow sports lab boss Grigory Rodchenkov claimed that past Russian World Cup teams had doped or that the current national players were involved.
The Kremlin views Rodchenkov, who lives in hiding in the United States, as a traitor. The former Russian official has yet to provide an answer to a list of 59 questions sent to him by FIFA.
Bezuglov said some 1,500 Russian players had gone through doping screening since November 2015 when the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) stripped RUSADA of accreditation.
“In this entire time, there has not been a single positive test,” he said.
A FIFA spokesman also said that samples taken from Russian football players would all be analyzed outside Russia to ensure the integrity of the test process.
“No Russians will be involved in the implementation of the anti-doping program and all analysis of doping samples will be done at WADA laboratories outside Russia,” said the spokesman.
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