Mike Rowbottom: It's official! FIFA is in the clear financially, and the Spanish doping problem is sorted! Oh no...wait...

It's been a landmark week for sport as FIFA's Ethics Committee has finally got to the root of the bribery allegations involving its long defunct marketing arm, International Sport and Leisure, before declaring the case "is now closed".

And Eufemiano Fuentes, whose widespread doping practices in cycling, football, tennis and other sports have been under scrutiny for seven years since being brought to light through the Operation Puerto investigation, has finally been brought to justice in the Spanish courts.

At last the highest levels of football are clear of any suggestion of financial malpractice and the doping problem in Spain has been thoroughly examined and eradicated!

Oh no. As you were. The FIFA report has done little more than confirm what was already known about the involvement of Brazil's former FIFA President João Havelange and the former head of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) Ricardo Teixeira, both of whom have already relinquished their FIFA posts, and implicated the 84-year-old Nicolás Leoz, who has just stepped down from his position as President of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) citing "health and personal grounds".

And the smiling Fuentes was given a one-year sentence by Judge Julia Patricia Santamaria – suspended. Judge Jules also ruled that the 211 bags of frozen blood and plasma seized from Fuentes' office by police in 2006, which might implicate athletes in sports other than cycling, should be analysed to see how widespread this doping abuse was. Oh no. Sorry again, as you were. Should be destroyed.

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Eufemiano Fuentes arriving at a Madrid court before receiving a one-year suspended sentence for "endangering public health"

Santamaria cited Spanish privacy laws for the decision not to turn the evidence over to anti-doping authorities for analysis. More than 50 cyclists have been implicated in Operation Puerto. Fuentes has testified that he also had clients from other sports including football, tennis, boxing and athletics, but no names have been named.

In the circumstances, the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) description of this proposed action as "unsatisfactory" appears restrained in the extreme. What possible motive could there be for destroying these samples, other than to avoid the awkwardness of further revelation? They hardly endanger public health – the charge of which Fuentes has been found guilty. Wheels within wheels?

The latest twist in this case is a scandal in itself, and the reaction has been one of predictable outrage. Andy Parkinson, head of UK Anti-Doping, described it as "massively disappointing", adding: "Everything WADA has been about for the last few years is sharing information and making sure the global fight is fought at global level.

"What we've got here is a bunch of information that may or may not implicate people and we can't get our hands on it. That's really disappointing for clean athletes."

Britain's Andy Murray, winner of the Olympic tennis title last summer, tweeted: "Operation Puerto case is beyond a joke. Biggest cover up in sports history? Why would court order blood bags to be destroyed?"

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Andy Murray has questioned whether the decision to destroy frozen blood samples raided during Operation Puerto in 2006 is the "biggest cover-up in sports history"

An online petition has been started under the banner "Operacion Puerto evidence must not be destroyed" and concluding "The Spanish court order to destroy blood bags collected in Operacion Puerto protects dopers and severely undermines the integrity of sport".

WADA, and Spain's anti-doping agency AEA are contesting the judgement and insisting that the samples be analysed.

Their position is endorsed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), whose medical commission chairman, Arne Ljungqvist, commented on the decision to destroy the samples: "It's fundamentally wrong from the point of view of conducting an efficient fight against doping," he told the Associated Press. "This goes against the principles of the anti-doping code. We've been waiting for the information for years now. Every possibility we have to gain more knowledge as to what happened and how people behaved is of great importance to us."

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Arne Ljungqvist said the latest ruling on the samples was "fundamentally wrong"

One large shred of hope in all this is that the existence of these potentially incriminating samples is so well known. It was not until a decade after the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics that reports began to emerge of suspect activity at the UCLA facility charged with dope testing during the Games.

Don Catlin, director of the facility, admitted that nine positive tests were never reported, and he never knew why.

If you were a cynical person you might be tempted to use that happy French expression "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".

Dick Pound, the former head of WADA, commented: "It's embarrassing for Spain. Everybody knows we will be able to uncover quite a bit more doping in the sports other than cycling in which Fuentes was involved."

If the state of this case is embarrassing for Spain, it is surely embarrassing too for those seeking to bring the Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2020 to Madrid. It may be that someone very high up will soon have to make a judgement about relative embarrassment – how might the emergence of bad news regarding elite sporting figures play against the potential benefits for the bid of clear and honest action?

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.