Fifa rules out ban on nandrolene users

Zurich, March 5: Football's international governing body Fifa has ruled out banning players who test positive for nandrolone, spokesman An...

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Zurich, March 5: Football’s international governing body Fifa has ruled out banning players who test positive for nandrolone, spokesman Andreas Herren has said.

The decision follows research which showed nandrolone can be produced by the body during strenuous exercise.

The Fifa decision, if applied in other sports, could create an escape route for several leading athletes — including German middle-distance ace Dieter Baumann, Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey and the British trio of Linford Christie, Mark Richardson and Doug Walker — who have been banned by international athletics body IAAF for testing positive for the same substance.

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Scientists commissioned by Fifa carried out a study of 148 Swiss footballers in compiling their findings.

“It was found that the body did produce nandrolone in quantities that would put players above the threshold for a positive test,” Herren said. “This value was attained through normal physical stress.”

“Knowing that there is the possibility that the body itself produces nandrolone, we cannot ban footballers who test positive for nandrolone.”

A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee, which has set a level of 2.0 nanograms per millilitre for residues of nandrolone in urine, said that the Fifa report would not lead to a change in its position.

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IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch told AFP the study of Swiss footballers had not been subject to proper scientific scrutiny and had not appeared in any science review.

He said that a British study of nandrolone carried out over a six-month period had proved that it was possible to detect illegal doping through measuring the level of nandrolone in urine samples.