'German TV film on doping part of massive attack on Russia'

Moscow, June 10: The German TV broadcaster ARD’s film about doping in sports is part of a massive attack against Russia, Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has said.

“It can be seen not just in the German media. It’s a targeted attack against Russia, calm and well-organised. Doping whistleblower Rodchenkov works for the people that have given him refuge,” Mutko said on Thursday, reports Tass.

“We don’t know what he has gathered since 2005. He is still to retrieve it.”

The minister also claims that he persolly is the main target of allegations made by former head of Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory Grigory Rodchenkov.

“I am his, Rodchenkov’s, target,” he told reporters. “He hates me in all his interviews. My advisor talia Zhelanova drew attention to all these things. I fired him,” Mutko said.

The latest film about doping abuse in Russian sports, aired late on Wednesday night, claims that Mutko in 2014 concealed information that an anonymous player of the Krasnodar football club had tested positive for a prohibited substance.

The informer shared with the TV channel correspondence between the sports ministry and the anti-doping laboratory regarding a football player who was proved to have used hexarelin (growth hormone), but was not punished for that.

The film showed a page from that correspondence where all crucial information, including the player’s me was deleted.

An ARD jourlist then remarked that the initials V.L. mentioned in the correspondence were the first letters of Mutko’s me and patronymic. IANS