From Russian doping to FIFA bribery, 2017 proves dark time

Russiabeing banned from the Winter Olympics stole the headlines but may alsohave overshadowed an otherwise sorry year for sport in terms ofscandals.It was a particularly damaging year for sporting officials, not least from the world of football and FIFA in particular.FormerGuam football federation president Richard Lai pleaded guilty in Aprilto taking bribes worth almost $1 mn while Costa Rican Eduardo Li,Guatemala’s Brayan Jimenez, Venezuela’s Rafael Esquivel and Julio Rochaof Nicaragua all received lifetime bans, with Nigeria’s Amos Adamuhanded a two-year ban.Hector Trujillo of Guatemala, the formergeneral secretary of his country’s football federation, was the firstperson brought down in the widespread FIFA corruption scandal to besentenced to jail, given eight months by a judge in New York in October.Twomore, Jose Maria Marin, former head of Brazil’s Football Confederationand Juan Angel Napout, former head of Paraguayan football, wereconvicted of corruption earlier this month for accepting more than $17mnin bribes between them.The likes of Michel Platini, the former UEFApresident, and Jerome Valcke, the former FIFA general secretary, bothfailed in their appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to havetheir FIFA bans overturned while other prominent figures were embroiledin the ever-widening scandal.FIFA decided to bar Russianvice-president Vitaly Mutko from its ruling council in March over hisinvolvement in the Russian state-sponsored doping scandal exposed by theWorld Anti-Doping Agency-sponsored McLaren report.Urine samples swappedInJune, Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren told German television channelARD that doping by Russian footballers had been covered up by swappingurine samples.It was a bad year for Mutko who was also banned fromthe Games for life by the International Olympic Committee at the sametime that Russia were excluded from the Pyeongchang Winter Games nextyear.Mutko, though, remains head of the Russia 2018 World Cuporganising committee and a close ally of Russian President VladimirPutin.Russian athletes can compete as neutrals in South Korea,provided they adhere to strict conditions and have never been convictedof doping.But the number of Russian athletes banned for doping atthe 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics rose to 43 recently, and the country hasalready lost 13 of the 33 medals they originally won.Sky credibility damagedCyclingwas unable to avoid the negative headlines as Tour de France and Vueltaa Espana winner Chris Froome returned an adverse analytical finding forasthma medication salbutamol.Froome wasn’t suspended but may yet beif he cannot prove his innocence — his urine sample contained twice thepermitted amount of salbutamol.Coming on the back of the now filedUK Anti-Doping Agency investigation into former Tour winner BradleyWiggins’s reception of a mystery package at the 2011 Criterium duDauphine race, this has been a damaging year for the credibility of TeamSky — an outfit that has long boasted of its “zero tolerance” policy todoping.It was the year of the comeback for Maria Sharapovafollowing her doping suspension for using meldonium, but that broughtcontroversy as many of her rivals expressed displeasure.CanadianEugenie Bouchard branded her “a cheater” in May and said she should havebeen banned for life while former world number one Caroline Wozniackicriticised US Open organisers for putting the Russian on a show court.Backto corruption and Carlos Nuzman resigned as Brazilian Olympic Committeepresident in October after he was charged over a $2mn vote buyingscandal.Former world athletics chief Lamine Diack and his son PapaMassata were also investigated as authorities in France and Brazilfollowed the money trail to try to prove Rio had bought votes to win theright to host the 2016 Olympics.Former world sprint champion andfour-time Olympic silver medallist Frankie Fredericks was caught up inthe affair and had to resign from posts at both the IOC and IAAF afterhe received almost $300,000 from Papa Massata Diack.The two Diackshad already been banned for life by the IAAF in 2016 after acceptingbribes to cover up doping by Russian athletes.