• Portuguese club Rio Ave has expressed its ‘astonishment and indignation’ after television channel SIC reported that four of its players have been charged with match-fixing. ‘As is public knowledge, the Feirense v. Rio Ave game last season was the target of an abnormal number of bets’, the Primeira Liga club said in a statement. ‘Subsequently, a process was opened and managed by the Judicial Police, in which the staff of Rio Ave collaborated with six months ago. As in any process of this nature that is triggered by an abnormality of bets, an investigation was initiated. A process that operates in secrecy and on which we have no information.’

• Jack Robertson, former Chief investigator for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), has criticised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for allowing Russian athletes to compete at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics. In an opinion piece for the New York Times, he argues that the Winter Olympics are already tainted, as ‘clean athletes will face dirty ones’. Robertson was responsible for putting Vitaly Stepanov and Yuliya Stepanova in touch with Hajo Seppelt, after WADA ignored evidence they provided in 2010 about systemic Russian doping. An interview with Robertson, published in 2016, is available here.

• A total of 471 anti-doping tests have been conducted in Azerbaijan during the year, the country’s anti-doping agency (AMADA) told Trend News Agency. Shafag Huseynli said there had been two positive tests in handball and athletics; three positive tests in cycling and bodybuilding; and one positive test in weightlifting. Out of competition tests accounted for 278 of the total, whilst in competition tests accounted for 193. Athlete Biological Passports (ABPs) were created for 12 athletes.