Inside Lines: Drugs: Britain faces French disconnection

Copenhagen, where Hans Christian Andersen weaved his fairytales, seems a particularly apt setting for this week's conference which the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) hope will bring about a common code of practice and a uniformity on penalties in the tangled world of sporting drugs. Some hope. The inevitability is that the cheats will still come up with excuses that would stretch even the imagination of dear old Hans. But, if WADA get their way, the make-believers may will find it harder to escape the drugs-net. The intention is to agree on a list of proscribed substances and consistency of punishment that will be accepted globally. The reality is that the United Nations may find it easier to accommodate an agreed resolution on Iraq than this conference will on how to eliminate drugs from sport. "At least something positive should come out of it," says Michele Verroken, who heads UK Sport's anti-doping unit, with conscious irony. The plan is for all governments to sign up to the code by next year but, as at the UN, there are substantial differences, not least between Britain and France, over who should be responsible for combating drugs – governments or govening bodies? The French have already made illegal drugs use in sport a criminal offence and want other countries to do the same. Britain's view that it should be left to the sports bodies themselves will be reinforced by the sports minister, Richard Caborn. There could also be some resistance by two sports, football and cycling, to any code which requires them to take a tougher stance against the druggies. But, insists Verroken, the consequences of not reaching agreement in Copenhagen would be "horrific".

London bids farewell to the running man

It is ironic that Chris Brasher should die in the year when London is trying to assemble a bid for the Olympic Games. Even just a few years ago, there would have been only one candidate to lead that bid, Brasher himself. Doubtless he would have done so with the same tetchy tenacity and uncompromising vigour which made his London Marathon what it is today. As one of the three former sports editors of The Observer now writing for this newspaper who worked with him, I can also vouch for his genius, though not always his geniality. He once sued me for jocularly suggesting that the occasional brown envelope might have fluttered his way in his running days. An apology was unacceptable. He duly collected £8,000, which he promptly donated to the Injured Jockeys' Fund. Later he sent me a no-hard-feelings postcard with an invitation to lunch. How we would have relished observing him cussing and cajoling the IOC into voting for London. Had he been fit and involved, he certainly would have bullied Tony Blair into backing the bid by now. Unlike the Prime Minister, Brasher was a man who did no one's bidding but his own.

Home, not away, for Games HQ

Putting one over the Aussies is a rarity for British sport these days, so it is good to reveal that the headquarters of the Commonwealth Games Federation will continue to be based in London despite intensive efforts from Down Under to get it relocated to Melbourne. Thanks to the on-going support of UK Sport, who will contribute £75,000 towards the annual running costs, the federation will stay put, a timely bonus in the wake of the successful Manchester Games. "It is in the UK's interest to have international governing bodies based here as we seek to increase British influence on world sport," says UK Sport's chief executive, Richard Callicott.

The denizens of the Premier League may be delighted that one of their own, in the form of their chairman Dave Richards, is taking over from Lord Pendry as the new chairman of the Football Foundation. But some other elements in the game are less than ecstatic at what seems to be another example of Premiership power-play.

The former Labour MP Tom Pendry has done a good job in charge of the game's charitable funding body (he is to become president) and some feel a similarly independent figure should have been handed the £27,000-a-year part-time post. "The increasing influence of the Premiership over football at all levels is now very worrying," said one senior Football League figure. No one doubts the integrity and ability of Richards (pictured) but wouldn't Trevor Brooking, a member of the foundation's six-man council and until recently the chairman of Sport England, have been a happier choice?

The Iraq vote in the Commons on Wednesday caused Richard Caborn to arrive a tad late for Sean Bean's "Macbeth" at the Albery Theatre, in London, which meant he had to stand at the back until the interval. No doubt he was reminded of his days as a schoolboy fan on the Bramall Lane terraces.

The sports minister, a former director of Sheffield United, had been invited by Bean, a current director, to watch one of the final performances, and apparently particularly enjoyed Bean's heavy nuance on the line "Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests". In the event of a summer reshuffle, "Is this a dagger I see before me?" might have struck a chord, too. Toil and trouble, minister? Only joking.

insidelines@independent.co.uk

Exit Lines

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