First player in England fails test for nandrolone

A professional footballer has tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone for the first time in England.

The Football Association is investigating the positive test, which occurred within the last three months, and are keeping the identity of the player secret until the inquiry has been completed. The FA is refusing even to reveal which division he plays in or whether or not he is British.

The finding of 19-norandrosterone, a metabolite of nandrolone, was brought to light in UK Sport's quarterly anti-doping report published yesterday. An FA spokesman said: "We can confirm that this is the situation and we have an investigation ongoing."

The FA is treading very cautiously as positive nandrolone tests have been a source of huge controversy in the past. The human body is thought to produce minute amounts of the substance naturally and several leading athletes in the past have not been punished for positive tests. Some scientific experts believe that some dietary supplements are contaminated with the steroid.

In Britain, the sprinters Linford Christie and Dougie Walker and the hurdler Gary Cadogan have all tested positive in the past but were subsequently cleared by UK Athletics, who claimed there were not enough concrete facts concerning nandrolone to convict the trio of being drugs cheats.

On the continent however, several footballers have been banned, including the Dutch international Jaap Stam just weeks after his transfer from Manchester United to the Italian club Lazio last year.

The Scottish Football Association has moved to improve the infrastructure of youth football in Scotland by creating hundreds of coaching posts. The SFA hopes to recruit and train volunteers, from primary schools and youth clubs in Scotland, in the basics of coaching youngsters.

The SFA's chief executive, David Taylor, said the fast food chain McDonalds had made a contribution to ensure that 60,000 Scottish schoolchildren will receive free coaching over the next four years. "We have stated our aim is to improve football at every level in this country and this partnership with McDonalds is crucial to our work in the community," Taylor said.

Scotland recently drew 2-2 with the Faroe Islands in a Euro 2004 qualifier and slipped to an all-time low of 63rd in Fifa's world rankings, although wins over Iceland and Canada last month have restored some of their credibility.

The wold and European governing bodies, Fifa and Uefa, have agreed to work together when lobbying the European Union, especially on matters relating to player quotas at European clubs. "In future we will be consulting each other and talking together to avoid any misunderstandings," said Fifa's director of communications, Marcus Siegler.

The announcement came after a recent meeting between game's world governing body and its European counterpart and followed newspaper reports that Fifa's president, Sepp Blatter, had proposed a quota of six home players to control the number of foreigners in European teams.

"We think alike on this," Siegler added, "but we know that it is very difficult to protect young players in the present system. We know that it is much cheaper for the clubs to sign foreigners than it is to educate their own young players."

Siegler admitted though that it would be difficult for Fifa or Uefa to find a way of changing the system in Europe that permitted free movement of labour and allowed clubs to sign as many non-European players as they like.