adminSikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
WORLD football motherbody Fifa has increased penalties for those who violate their anti-doping rules with offenders facing a four-year ban from the current two.
This is in a bid to eradicate the scourge from the game of football.
The new measures have been adopted in accordance with the new World Anti-Doping Agency Code for 2015. The general penalty for Anti-Doping Regulations violations has increased from two years to four.
The fundamental aims of doping control, according to Fifa, are threefold: to uphold and preserve the ethics of sport, to safeguard the physical health and mental integrity of players as well as to ensure that all competitors have an equal chance.
While Zimbabwe has not had many reported and confirmed cases of doping in football or other sport codes, Dynamos’ Devon Chafa was last year handed an effective six months ban after he tested positive for a banned substance during a random testing.
In a statement announcing the ban then, Fifa said their disciplinary committee decided on October 10 to sanction Chafa who had been provisionally suspended in August for an anti-doping rule violation following a doping control conducted after the match of the preliminary competition of the 2014 Fifa World Cup Brazil played in Harare June 9, 2013.
“The player has been declared ineligible for a period of six months after testing positive for prednisone – a substance included on Wada’s 2013 Prohibited List under the class S9 glucocorticosteroids.
“By testing positive for a prohibited substance, the player has violated Article Six of the Fifa Anti-Doping Regulations. As such, he has contravened Article 63 of the Fifa disciplinary code.”
The suspension covered all types of matches, including domestic, international, friendly and official fixtures.
In 2013 too, rugby players Simbarashe Chirara, Dylan Coetzee and Ian Muza were handed two-year bans after testing positive for the prohibited anabolic androgenic steroids.
Many local players both in the lower rungs of league football and the Premiership are known to abuse drugs while others take marijuana, all prohibited substances and they have only gone scot free because of lax in doping tests.
Wada accredited doctor, Nicholas Munyonga, is on record calling for more awareness on anti doping campaigns saying a large chunk of athletes in the country would dismally fail drug tests because of lack of knowledge on what they take.
The respected doctor was even quoted as saying while marijuana was not a performance enhancing drug, it was against the spirit of sports because it affects co-ordination and causes short term memory loss and affects judgment.
Zifa communications manager Xolisani Gwesela said the association was fully behind Munyonga’s calls to increase awareness on drug abuse among athletes.
“As Zifa we are fully behind Munyonga’s calls to increase awareness as it also forms efforts to endorse fair play. We are however aware that a lot of money is needed for this exercise and will therefore continue calling upon other partners to come on board and help too,” said Gwesela.
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