AS Roma coach told to explain drug references

AS Roma coach Zdenek Zeman has been called before the Italian Olympic Committee to explain references he made at the weekend to a drug problem in Italian football.

Zeman will appear before the start of the new Serie A season after he claimed that drugs and big business investment houses had taken a grip on the game in Italy and the game needed rescuing from harmful influences that were changing the character of the game with money and chemically enhanced performances.

The Olympic Committee in Italy is investigating doping in sport on the peninsula and is likely to ask Czech born coach Zeman for any proof he may have for his claims. Serie drug testing routinely returns negative results and every test at the recent World Cup was negative. In the light of the scandal that has engulfed the Tour de France this year it is now clear that masking agents can mask the effects of performance enhancing drugs to make them undetectable when the performer is tested.

The Committee's position has not been helped by the head of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, calling for drugs to be legalised to enable the athletes in the Olympic sports to cheat better as the level of drug use cannot be controlled and is now completely endemic in some sports - as cycling has been finding out over the past two weeks. Zeman's comments appear to suggest that a similar scandal is approaching in the new Italian season.