Soccer

Mutko steps down from World Cup's local organising committee

Russia's deputy prime minister and the Russian Football Union (RFU) president Vitaly Mutko meets with the media after a session of the RFU executive committee in Moscow on December 25, 2017. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko, who has been hit with a lifetime ban from the Olympic Games over doping, on December 25, 2017 said he is suspending his role as president of the Russian Football Union while he contests the ban in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. / AFP PHOTO / Alexander NEMENOV

ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP / Getty

Vitaly Mutko has quit for the second time in two days.

As detailed by the Associated Press, Mutko stepped down as chairman of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Local Organising Committee on Wednesday, and told Russian news agencies that he would be replaced by Alexei Sokorin, the chief executive officer of the committee. The announcement came just one day after Russia’s deputy prime minister suspended his work as the president of the Football Union of Russia.

Mutko was excluded from any participation in all future Olympic Games as the International Olympic Committee suspended the Russian Olympic Committee for “the systematic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system in Russia” during the Winter Olympic Games of Sochi 2014. At the time, he was Russia’s minister of sport.

According to the Guardian’s David Conn, FIFA removed Cornel Borbely as chairman of the Ethics Committee’s Investigatory Chamber while he was on Mutko’s trail, investigating the alleged role of the deputy prime minister in state-sponsored doping.