Fifa bans Russian World Cup head Vitaly Mutko from council election after he fails eligibility check

Russia World Cup head Vitaly Mutko has been barred from seeking re-election to Fifa’s top decision-making body after failing an eligibility check, people familiar with the decision have revealed.

Fifa’s review committee has ruled that Mutko can no longer sit on the Fifa Council because of his role as a deputy prime minister of Russia. People familiar with the decision spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the eligibility checks on Mutko, who is also head of Russia’s soccer federation.

Mutko’s exclusion from the election is due to a clampdown on government interference in soccer rather than a separate, ongoing Fifa ethics examination of a World Anti-Doping Agency report that implicates him in Russia’s doping cover-ups.

That investigation could lead to sanctions that prevent Mutko remaining head of the Russian Football Union and chairman of Russia’s 2018 World Cup organising committee.

Mutko, who has been on Fifa’s ruling body since 2009, had been one of five men seeking four European places on the council in the April 5 election at the Uefa Congress.

Now four men are in line for four places: Sandor Csanyi, a current Uefa executive committee member from Hungary; Geir Thorsteinsson, president of Iceland’s soccer federation; former AC Milan player Dejan Savicevic, Montenegro’s federation president; and Costakis Koutsokoumnis, the Cyprus federation president.

Fifa has long prohibited government interference in how member federations run their own affairs, but Mutko has had multi-task status as head of the World Cup preparations, Russian federation and Fifa Council member for several years.