Former FIFA official Miguel Maduro has said he banned Vitaly Mutko from football's ruling council in March after resisting strong pressure from the FIFA leadership.
Maduro -- who chaired the governance committee of world football's governing body before being removed from the post in May -- prevented Mutko, a Russian deputy prime minister who is head of the 2018 World Cup organising committee, from seeking re-election to the council on grounds of political interference.
He told a committee of British MPs that the FIFA leadership had warned him the World Cup in Russia would be a "disaster" and Gianni Infantino's FIFA presidency could in jeopardy if Mutko was banned.