Football: FA to extend drug testing programme

By Ian Parkes

AGAINST A backgroundof allegations of widespread drug use in the sport, the Football Association has revealed it aims to strengthen its commitment to keeping substance abuse out the game.

Steve Double, its press spokesman, said the FA hopes to be allowed by the Sports Council to step up a testing programming that already appears successful, in that there has been a fall in the number of positive cases despite more tests being carried out.

Double yesterday urged Ron Atkinson, the former manager of Manchester United, Sheffield Wednesday and Coventry, to provide the FA with information about the drug abuse he refers to in his forthcoming book, an extract from which appeared in a Sunday newspaper yesterday.

Atkinson said in the book that he had subjected Aston Villa players to blood tests and found that two had taken cannabis; that Premiership players take to the pitch every week "with cocaine, cannabis and all sorts of funny tablets buzzing around their system"; and that he had heard that "a well-known England international... is reputed to be the biggest dealer in football".

The game's authorities were taken aback by Atkinson's accusations. The Premier League's spokesman, Mike Lee, said: "It's a matter for the drugs unit at the Football Association, but if Ron Atkinson has evidence then he should make it available. Obviously we at the Premier League fully support the work and the efforts of the FA with their testing programme. They have done an excellent job over the years."

Double offered a similar response. "If there's any truth in these claims, then we would like to hear about it," he said.

He added: "Over the last few years the number of tests have risen from 272 to more than 500. The positive finds were three last year, five the year before that, seven before that and 12 before that. A recent proposal submitted to the Government for doubling the existing drug programme is now being looked at by the Sports Council."

Atkinson would also like to see the current random policy become compulsory, with tests every two weeks, a system he believes "would rumble the few and protect the innocent majority." However, Double thinks that method is flawed. "The players would know when the tests are coming," he said.

Organisations such as the Professional Footballers' Association and the League Managers' Association are confident the level of drug use referred to by Atkinson does not exist in the game. The testing programme is backed up by an extensive education policy, with kids as young as nine warned of the dangers of drug abuse and the possibility of peer pressure.

The PFA's deputy chief executive, Brendon Batson, said: "We are aware of a drug culture, particularly among the youth. But the message is getting through loud and clear, to both young and old, that there is no place for any substances, be they recreational or stimulants, in professional sport. But I don't know of anything like Atkinson is referring."

John Barnwell, the chief executive of the League Managers' Association, was astonished by the revelations. "I'm confident we do not have as serious a drug problem as Atkinson is claiming."

n Roma's coach, Zdenek Zeman, will appear before a Turin magistrate after alleging that doping is rife in Italian football. Zeman will appear before the judge on 12 August, a day after he attends a hearing of the Italian Olympic Committee's anti-doping panel. The Italian international Alessandro Del Piero is to take legal action against Zeman, and Chelsea's Gianluca Vialli described the Czech coach as a "terrorist" after both were implicated by him in drug abuse.