Forget the ongoing psychodrama over whether Russia is to be banned completely from Rio 2016: that decision will have more to do with politics and projected legal consequences than natural justice.

The critical question, for me, following Monday’s publication of the McLaren report is this: Will star witness Rodchenkov be used exclusively as a tool to nail the Russians? Or are we ready to use the wodge of new data, assertions and evidence that his defection has made available to help with a more general assault on corruption, wherever such an assault may take us?

The McLaren report is a very different animal to its predecessor, the Pound report. 

Pound had the luxury of time; the proximity of Rio means McLaren had to cope with what he alludes to repeatedly as a “compressed timeline” of 57 days.

One very important thing that McLaren has done, however, is reinforce the credibility of Grigory Rodchenkov, former director of the Moscow laboratory at the heart of the alleged Russian results manipulation system.

As he writes: “The IP [McLaren] has concluded that in the context of the investigation he has been truthful with the IP.”

Given that his reliability has been established and given the privileged position he once occupied, it seems to me it would be a big mistake not to go through the “large amount of data and information” now available with due care and attention.

Yet McLaren says, “We have only skimmed the surface.”

Further evidence, moreover, “is becoming available by the day”.

So will he be handed the resources to finish what he started?

As far as I can see, this remains a little unclear.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) highlights one potential obstacle with admirable clarity in the seventh recommendation of the statement it released on Monday.

This reads: “Professor McLaren and his team to complete their mandate provided WADA can secure the funding that would be required.” 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has now said it “fully supports” his request to “continue and finalise his work”.

But its statement did not say in as many words that it would fund this continuation.

One enticing attribute of blanket justice, as opposed to the meticulous compilation of individual cases against alleged transgressors, is its tendency to be comparatively cheap.

Yes, you run the risk of innocent parties being caught in the cracks.

But that, so the strident pre-Rio rhetoric is increasingly maintaining, is a price worth paying.

To give the IOC its due, it is still talking in terms of the eligibility of each Russian athlete being decided “based on an individual analysis of his or her international anti-doping record”.

But it is also exploring the “legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes for the Olympic Games 2016 versus the right to individual justice”.

One of the often unacknowledged but I think irrefutable truths of the fight against doping is that Governments - with myriad other calls on their resources - are reluctant to commit the sort of sums necessary to endow the fight with any realistic prospect of success.

Just in the past few days, UK Anti-Doping has confirmed it has been advised that financing will be reduced in 2016-17.

How can we be so sure that McLaren’s work is worth the precious cash it will absorb if he perseveres.

One fact alone - and this established “without any doubt whatsoever” rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt” as claimed for most findings in the report - is alarming in its implications.

This is that “the caps of urine sample bottles can be removed without any evidence visible to the untrained eye”.

McLaren, indeed, claims to have evidence that the FSB, the Russian security service, “had methodology to open sample bottles…as early as February 2013”.

The compromising of such a banal but fundamental link in the fragile chain on which any half-effective anti-doping system must depend gives rise to a torrent of important questions that need to be answered convincingly if current methods are to retain their credibility.

If the FSB has this opening “methodology”, can we be sure that others don’t? Were the FSB even the first to develop it? If they have been able to do this for more than three years, how do we know they haven’t passed on the secret?

Has this type of bottle been withdrawn from service in favour of a different “tamper-proof” device? If so, is the new one any more secure? Does it come from the same manufacturer or manufacturers? Have they been interviewed about how the FSB’s breakthrough - if indeed it was a breakthrough - might initially have been achieved?

Presumably by now WADA has the answers to some of these questions. I would suggest that it needs to be sure of the answers to all of them, and be prepared to communicate them to those on whom the credibility of the system depends, if it is to restore confidence.

This security breach in one of the basic building blocks of the system is one thing - and then there is the content of “Exhibit 1”.

Not surprisingly, the McLaren report shows signs of being rushed. Probably for this reason, the labelling of what Exhibit 1 actually consists of is somewhat imperfect.

Based on a sentence on page 78 of the report, however, it appears to be a report given by Rodchenkov to the FSB.

According to McLaren, by the way, Rodchenkov’s FSB code name was “Kuts” in what must be judged a particularly backhanded compliment to the first transcendentally great athlete of the Soviet era.

I would urge you to read this Exhibit, which proffers comments seemingly made by Rodchenkov on a wide range of issues beyond the alleged Russian system of which he was a part.

For example, already in January 2015, he was convinced apparently that Sebastian Coe would beat rival Sergey Bubka in the race for the Presidency of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

I would love to hear McLaren’s explanation for including this document in his report in isolation.

The allegations it contains are certainly not “beyond reasonable doubt”.

I would say they are closer to tittle-tattle and that Rodchenkov may have been trying to impress his interlocutors.

There is even one small detail that raises a question-mark in my mind regarding his reliability.

He appears to question the English-speaking ability of Natalia Zhelanova, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko’s anti-doping advisor.

When I met Zhelanova, along with Mutko, in April 2015, her English seemed perfectly good.

The point is though, since McLaren has become convinced that Rodchenkov is a credible witness, it seems to me there is a strong case for subjecting what he says in such reports to investigation, even if it does not directly relate to the Russian results management system allegations of which have so shocked us.

McLaren’s terms of reference require him to “determine other evidence or information” held by Rodchenkov.

I very much hope he is given resources to pursue any such leads to the extent he judges expedient.