England defender Rio Ferdinand’s future hung in the balance on Wednesday as the deadline neared for him to respond to charges of missing a doping test that could result in a two-year ban.
Ferdinand had been given two weeks to explain why he left his club Manchester United’s training ground on September 23 when UK Sport’s doping control officers were waiting for him to provide a urine sample.
The English Football Association (FA) is under pressure to announce a decision on any sanctions quickly following criticism from Fifa president Sepp Blatter and World Anti-Doping Agency chairperson Dick Pound over the length of time it has taken to deal with the case.
The FA has already suspended Ferdinand from international matches but he has been allowed to play for Manchester United pending the outcome of his case.
The club are supporting Ferdinand’s claim that he simply forgot about the test, partly because he was preoccupied with moving house on that day.
A number of holes have however appeared in his story and the player is widely expected to be banned for between three months and two years.
England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, who has offered to testify as a character witness for Ferdinand, will be keeping his fingers crossed that any ban does not affect the player’s chances of being included in England’s squad for the 2004 European Championship finals in Portugal in June and July.
Ferdinand’s claim to have been too busy moving house was undermined when he was photographed shopping in Manchester city centre later on September 23.
The FA’s decision on any sanction is likely to hinge on whether Ferdinand can show, with the help of his mobile phone records, that he was not contactable immediately after leaving the training ground and so could not be summoned back to take the test that day.
Newspapers claiming to have obtained details of Ferdinand’s phone records have reported that his mobile was switched on all afternoon and that his first communication after leaving the training ground was a text message to his private doctor, who had been treating him for a kidney infection.
Ferdinand (24) maintains he has never used performance-enhancing or recreational drugs.
A test that he took within 36 hours of the one he missed proved negative although that is unlikely to have much bearing on the final outcome.
The delay would have been long enough to allow a number of banned substances to be eliminated from the body.
The FA will also have to take into account the fact that Ferdinand has already suffered a degree of punishment after being forced to miss England’s final Euro 2004 qualifier against Turkey in Istanbul last month.
His exclusion from the squad enraged his international teammates, who briefly threatened to boycott the Turkey match over what they saw as conviction without trial.
The FA’s action on Ferdinand follows the appointment of a new chief executive, Mark Palios, earlier this year. Palios has made tighter controls on drugs in football a top priority of his regime.
But the Ferdinand case has also placed him in a position of direct conflict. United have made it clear they will fight any lengthy ban on Ferdinand.
United’s case is likely to rest heavily on the precedent set last season when Manchester City player Christian Negouai missed a drugs test and escaped with a £2 000 fine.
That could be used as the basis for action through the courts although a decision by United to go down that road would risk incurring the wrath of Fifa. — Sapa-AFP