Alexy Sorokin is to replace Vitaly Mutko on the 38-person FIFA Council, after he was the only candidature UEFA received for the post. Sorokin is CEO of the Local Organising Committee for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, whose Chairman (Mutko) failed a FIFA eligibility test due to his position as Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister.

‘This is the only candidature that has been received by UEFA within the stipulated deadline for the four-year term of office on the FIFA Council, which will last until the 2021 UEFA electoral Congress’, read a UEFA statement. Sorokin will therefore stand as the sole candidate for election to the FIFA Council at UEFA’s 13th Extraordinary Congress in Geneva on 20 September.

Mutko was blocked from seeking re-election to the FIFA Council after he failed an eligibility test. ‘Mr Vitaly Mutko […] was not admitted as a candidate for the position of member of the FIFA Council due to his position as Deputy Prime Minister’, read a FIFA statement. The FIFA Governance Committee determined that he was not ‘politically neutral’, as required by Article 14 of the FIFA Code of Ethics.

However, Mutko is still listed as Deputy Chairman of FIFA’s Security and Integrity Committee; as a member of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Bureau; and as a member of the Organising Committee for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia. He is also President of the Football Union of Russia (FUR) and Chairman of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the tournament, where Sorokin is his CEO. He has also been appointed to Chair the organising committee for MINEPS VI, a UNESCO-sanctioned conference discussing the integrity of sport taking place in Russia during July.

Mutko was Russia’s Minister of Sport from 2008 until 2016, and was appointed as a FIFA Council member in 2009. FIFA’s rules on political neutrality were not included in previous versions of its Statutes, but were part of the 2012 version of its Code of Ethics. This raises questions as to why Mutko was re-elected to the Executive Committee (as the FIFA Council was then called) at the UEFA Congress in London on 24 May 2013, and why that re-election was accepted at the 2013 FIFA Congress, despite Mutko’s high-profile government post.

Mutko was Russia’s Minister of Sport during the period when systemic Russian doping was uncovered in Russia by the Independent Person (IP) Reports produced for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) by Richard McLaren. He was implicated in the WADA IP Reports as being involved in the ‘disappearing positive’ methodology used to cover up positive doping tests – in particular, it was alleged that he personally ordered the covering up of a Russian footballer’s positive test.

Questions remain as to why FIFA has chosen to ban Mutko for political non-neutrality at this point in time, as he held a government position as Russia’s Minister for Sport while also being a member of the FIFA Council and the Executive Committee that preceded it. Questions also remain as to whether Sorokin is free from political influence, given that he is CEO of the LOC for Russia 2018, which is chaired by Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister (Mutko). The situation is likely to rankle with organisations such as the Kuwait Football Association (KFA), which was suspended by FIFA for government interference in sport.