PARIS, 18 May 2004 — Football may not be represented in the Olympic Games in Athens this summer unless an agreement is reached between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and world football’s governing body FIFA on the signing of an anti-doping code, FIFA president Joseph Blatter warned yesterday.
“Mr Dick Pound, WADA president, informed us Saturday in Zurich that he could not make exceptions in the world anti-doping code. If we don’t reach agreement on this we will fight alone against doping,” said Blatter after a meeting of FIFA’s executive committee here.
FIFA and the International Cycling Union (UCI) are the only federations due to compete in Athens who have not yet signed the code, and International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge has warned that any federation which has not signed will not be allowed to take part in the Aug. 13-29 sporting extravaganza.
The agreement should in principle be signed in Paris on Friday by Blatter, Rogge and Pound during FIFA’s centenary congress.
But Blatter pointed out that FIFA still have qualms about automatic two-year doping bans in the case of a positive test and wants cases to be treated individually.
The code at present recognizes only two instances where the two-year penalty can be reduced: if athletes can prove that they took a substance inadvertently, or if they showed there was “no significant fault.”
“I’m sure that the entire world would not understand if football were not present at the Olympic Games while 400,000 tickets have already been sold,” said Blatter.
“But where is the problem? All it needs is a little flexibility and goodwill,” he added.
