Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Xavier fails drugs test

Middlesborough's Portugal defender Abel Xavier has failed a drugs test and has immediatly been given a World wide ban from football but for how long remains to be seen. The 32-year-old former Liverpool player was tested after the Uefa Cup tie against Xanthi on 29 September and produced a positive sample. It is not known whether the substance detected in the sample is regarded as performance-enhancing or recreational. Xavier has won 20 caps for his country and first came to England in 1999, when he joined Everton from PSV Eindhoven.


He spent two and a half seasons with Everton before moving to Liverpool, but despite scoring on his Liverpool debut, he only made 13 league starts at Anfield. After a loan spell at Galatasaray, he became a free agent and joined Roma at the start of this year, leaving when he failed to agree terms for a new contract. He joined Boro at the end of August as a replacement for Michael Reiziger, who left the Riverside to join PSV. Xavier has played for Boro since the Xanthi game, in the 3-2 Premiership win over Aston Villa, but he was not involved in Saturday's 1-1 draw with Portsmouth.

John Scott, UK Sport's director of drug-free sport, insists that football is as clean as it can be. "Obviously you can never be 100% certain," he told BBC Radio Four. "But the Football Association has one of the largest programmes in football in the world. "We work with them very closely to constantly improve it and we're working with them to ratchet up the number of tests and the nature of tests. "But as well as tests, you must have a very strong education programme. You have to keep reinforcing the message."

Dissapointing news for Xavier because he was lucky to get another chance in England and now he has blown it. Over the last few weeks he has started playing well for Boro but now he probably won't play again for them. To be honest I'm getting a little bit worried at the amount of players been suspended for realted incidents. Bad news for the game of football.