Couto banned after dope test failure

SS Lazio defender Fernando Couto has been suspended indefinitely by the Italian Football League after testing positive for nandrolone.

Couto misses Sunday's Rome derby and faces a two year ban from the game worldwide.

Couto has been suspended pending sentencing but two Perugia players were banned for 16 months earlier this season after they tested positive in for the banned substance which has been linked to both steroid abuse and food supplements.

Nandrolone can also occur naturally in the body.

Couto faces a hearing from the anti-doping investigation of the Italian Olympic Committee May 8th or 9th. He tested postive in a sample he provided after a match at Fiorentina on January 28th but Lazio's top lawyer Ugo Longo claims there may have been irregularities in the testing procedure in Florence.

Lazio signed Couto from FC Barcelona two years ago and he helped the club to its title win last season. he has also played for Parma AC and FC Porto and is a regular for the Portuguese national team but his drug test failure - players are tested at random after matches - last month has seen rumours fly through the Italian game regarding other failed drug test results for various top stars and conspiracy theories. The near hysteria was not helped when Juventus star Edgar Davids was confirmed earlier this week as failing a dope test also for nandrolone.

Davids is awaiting the results of a second test but Juve are furious with CONI - the Olympic committee who oversee doping procedures - that leaks to the media are revealing dope test results before the players or clubs are informed.

The recent cases have again highlighted comments made two years ago by former Roma and Lazio coach Zdenek Zeman who claimed that doping was widespread in the Italian game and named Juventus as a club who he believed were using performance-enhancing substances.

The outcry over Zeman's comments led to the Guariniello inquiry into doping in Italian sport which carried out extensive interviews with players from past and present but came to no conclusions and presented little evidence that Zeman was right.

Italian football does not need much excuse to be paranoid though and several star names and constantly linked with rumours over steroid abuse and other drug taking fostering the mood of gloom and suspicion.

The president of the Italian footballers' union (AIC) has called for an investigation into supplements given to players and said the anti-doping investigations should focus on the medical teams at clubs who have an increasing role in player management at the top outfits.

Guariniello looked into these medics but AIC president Sergio Campana wants a new examination.

"I think there is a kind of grey area," Campana told the 'Gazzetta dello Sport.'

"It as an area in which a certain product is circulating that spares three months in the gym. I do not believe there is bad faith. The players don't know, or don't know well, what they are taking - it's an oversight".

There is real fear among the professional players that any slight deviation from diet plans can cause problems with dope test results.

"They should bring together the presidents and medical staff of the clubs. They should say 'Now in 15 days tell me what you give the players'.

"Then they should take a list and test the products -- dietary supplements and such. What is fine they should put on a list. The others should be passed on to the investigators and others. There are disciplinary sanctions to deal with any false statements." said Campana.

All these sensible comments are made to reporters amid a backdrop of claim and counter claim with extraordinary rumours circulating but as no sport has yet developed convincing measures against drug cheats - or even a working definition of what can and cannot be used to enhance performance - Italian football is mired in problems that have been years in the making and could yet claim further famous victims.