a member of FIFA's Executive Committee in 2009. He was also the chairman of Russia's successful 2018 FIFA World Cup bid. He was reappointed as Minister of Sport on 21 May 2012 by President Putin. On 2 September 2015, he was appointed as the President of Russian Football Union for a second time without any opposition. Although government officials aren't allowed to hold top positions in sports organizations, an exception was made for Mutko in July 2015. On 24 September 2016, he was elected as the President of the association for a term of four years after winning the elections with 266 votes against his opponent Valery Gazzaev who received 142 votes. On 19 October 2016, he was promoted to a Deputy Prime Minister of Russia. His deputy Pavel Kolobkov was appointed to replace him as the Minister of Sport. He was barred from standing in re-election as a member of FIFA Council in March 2017 due to his ministerial role that was against the statutes of political neutrality and the prevention of any form of government interference. He announced temporarily relinquishing his position on 25 December 2017 as President of Russian Football Union for a period of six months to appeal against his Olympic ban, which was later lifted by the Court of Arbitration for Sports in Lausanne, Switzerland. On 18 May 2018, he was re-appointed Deputy Prime Minister, while instead of sports issues, in the new cabinet, Mutko began to oversee the construction and development of regions. Mutko resigned as head of Russian Football Union on 19 December. On 15 January 2020, he resigned as part of the cabinet, after President Vladimir Putin delivered the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, in which he proposed several amendments to the constitution. On 21 January, he was replaced by Marat Khusnullin. On 29 January, Mutko was appointed as the chief executive officer of , a state-owned company involved in the mortgage and realty market. World Cup bid Mutko was the chairman for Russia's successful bid to host the World Cup in 2018. He has, however, been criticised for his comments about the rival English bid, such as by suggesting that English football is corrupt. By way of explanation, he said: "What I meant was that sometimes the English media say there is corruption in Russia, but I meant that if you dig deeply you find corruption in any country". Corruption