The unlikely star of the 2017 documentary Icarus, Grigory Rodchenkov has revealed in a BBC interview that at least one "player in Russia's World Cup squad is a drugs cheat."
Once the head of Russia's anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, Rodchenkov was a key figure behind exposing a state-sponsored doping program in his country.
Currently living under a witness protection program in the United States of America, Rodchenkov spoke with a black mask and sunglasses on his face. When asked where he would be had he not left his native land, Rodchenkov has no doubts he would be "in the tomb."
Discussing the doping situation surrounding Russian football ahead of this summer's World Cup, Rodchenkov believes it will be a clean operation:
There will be only foreign doping control experts from Russia. It should be clean.
During competition all people are clean, the most complicated and wrong things are done before major events. High level footballers have agents and experts around them and they try to keep them clean because doping will ruin their careers.
Those who first encountered Rodchenkov in Icarus will also have been familiar with his mixed relationship with the Russian state.
Having performed numerous scurrilous tasks to help Russian athletes succeed in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in the Russian city of Sochi, Rodchenkov has since become persona non grata in his own land.
Speaking of his relationship with Vitaly Mutko, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and head of the Russian Football Federation (and former Sports Minister), Rodcehnkov revealed how he was instructed "not to touch football players."
Informed that Russia did not need "any positive cases or even noise in football, especially in the national level team."
You can watch the whole of Rodchenkov's incredible interview here.
