Russia to host Euro 2020 despite Wada ban

The World Anti-Doping Agency's (Wada) compliance review committee (CRC) recommended Russian Federation be banned from hosting and competing in major global events on Monday.

The CRC concluded that the data was tampered with and therefore recommended WADA's Executive Committee to declare RUSADA non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code for a four-year period, even though the committee admitted that the Russian agency itself, which was reorganized following doping allegations that saw Russia banned from the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, is not in breach of any rules.

Russia's anti-doping chief said Tuesday he expected the country to be barred from all sporting competition for four years, after a bombshell recommendation from the World Anti-Doping Agency that shocked Russian athletes.

"Russia has made great progress in fighting doping".

RUSADA was suspended by WADA in November 2015 in the wake of accusations of widespread corruption and state-sponsored doping.

Russia's anti-doping chief said Tuesday he expected the country to be barred from all sporting competition for four years, after a bombshell recommendation from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that shocked Russian Federation.

The claims that a copy of the data on the athletes' probes from the Moscow Laboratory handed over to WADA in January 2019 as part of the process of restoring Russia's anti-doping agency RUSADA's status appeared to be inauthentic or inconsistent.

Under the proposed new ban, individual Russian athletes could still compete if they were able to prove they are not implicated in the doping scandal, a position welcomed by the International Olympic Committee in its statement.

The Russian foreign minister cast calls for new anti-doping sanctions on Russian sports as one more Western effort to sideline Russia on Tuesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to meet UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.

"The response proposed by the CRC is inadequate especially given the deceit perpetuated by the Russian sport system which is controlled by the government".

Pole vault star Yelena Isinbayeva, who has been sharply critical of WADA, told RIA Novosti: "I don't have any illusions about a positive outcome".

Handing over the data in January was meant to be Russia's peace offering to put years of doping disputes behind it, while allowing past cover-ups to be revealed.

Based on the investigations, CRC determined that "hundreds" of presumed adverse analytical findings had been removed from a database in a Moscow Laboratory, with underlying raw data and PDF files deleted or altered.

"We need to push through real changes", he added.

"Given that UEFA is not a WADA signatory and Russian soccer players have not been caught doping, I am 99.9% certain that nothing will happen with the Euro next year", parliamentarian Igor Lebedev, a former member of the Russian Football Union's executive committee, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

This time round, new rules passed past year give WADA much greater authority to sanction entire countries across a range of sports.