LONDON, 2 December 2003 — England and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand will learn of possible sanctions when he appears at a Football Association hearing on Dec. 18 into his failure to take a drugs test.
The FA announced yesterday, three months after the defender failed to appear for the mandatory drugs test, that Ferdinand will face an FA panel during two days in Bolton a week before Christmas.
Ferdinand has insisted he merely ‘forgot’ to attend the test, although since the controversy — which almost led to England’s players boycotting a crucial Euro 2004 qualifier against Turkey — there have been calls for Ferdinand to be handed an exemplary ban.
The FA have set aside two days for the hearing, which will take place at the Reebok Stadium, the venue where Roy Keane received his record eight-match ban following his controversial statements about Alfie Haaland in his autobiography.
Ferdinand’s case has attracted a storm of controversy and at one stage looked to set to spark a strike among his England teammates ahead of the European Championship qualifier in Turkey. Sven-Goran Eriksson was ordered to leave the central defender out of his squad pending the outcome of an FA investigation into the incident, causing anger in the dressing room at the perceived unfair treatment of the player.
United have also been vehement in their defense of Ferdinand, although their stance has been criticized in some quarters, with many doping experts believing the record 29.3million pounds (US$50 million) defender should be receive a two-year ban for his indiscretion. Under the International Olympic Committee’s ‘strict liability rule’, forgetting to attend a test offers no defense against punishment, although FA executive director David Davies has recently admitted that his own organization’s regulations do not cover such a scenario. Manchester United chief executive David Gill labeled FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s criticism of the decision to keep playing Ferdinand as ‘incomprehensible’.
