Mutko has been banned from the Olympic Games for life NICK POTTS/PARussia and Fifa are facing huge embarrassment after Vitaly Mutko, the 2018 World Cup chief, was banned from the Olympics for life as part of the IOC’s punishment for systemic doping. The IOC also banned Russia from taking part in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in February although Russian athletes who can demonstrate they are “clean” can compete under a neutral flag as “Olympic athletes from Russia”. There was an immediate backlash in Russia, with VGTRK, the state broadcaster, saying that it would not broadcast the Winter Olympics if the official Russia team were not participating. The action to suspend the Russian Olympic Committee was perhaps the minimum sanction after the Schmid Commission, which had been appointed to investigate the scandal, confirmed that…

Source: The Times December 06, 2017 00:00 UTC