Doping issue closed after WADA challenge - PCB

Doping issue closed after WADA challenge - PCB
Sat Dec 16, 2006 8:32 PM IST
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KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistan has insisted the case of fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif being exonerated of a doping offence is closed after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said it would be taking the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

WADA chairman Dick Pound said in an interview with the BBC that his organisation would challenge Pakistan's decision to lift long-term bans on Shoaib and Asif.

"We have no comment on this. As far as the Pakistan Cricket Board is concerned the matter is closed," PCB chairman NasimAshraf told reporters on Saturday.

"I have already communicated to concerned authorities that all doping policies of member countries of the ICC should be WADA complaint," Ashraf said.

Shoaib and Asif were exonerated by a PCB appeals tribunal last week after they were earlier banned for two years and oneyear by a drug inquiry panel for testing positive for the banned steroid nandrolone.

Pound said WADA would contest the decision on the basis that the International Cricket Council is signed up to the anti-doping code and Pakistan, as one of its full members, should therefore be subject to its provisions.

"The two players tested positive. They have not even asked for the B samples to be analysed, so they accept the result (of the initial tests) and the PCB simply did not apply the code," Pound said.

Ashraf said that he did not want to give premature statements on the WADA challenge.

"But when and if the time and situation comes we will deal with it accordingly," he said.

"Shoaib and Asif as far as we are concerned if they are fit and make themselves available for selection are candidates for the South Africa tour and World Cup," he added.

SOME REACTION

Another senior PCB official said that the board was expecting some reaction from WADA.

"We are satisfied with the way this case has been handled. But we are prepared for any challenge from WADA in any court," he said.

"We have already consulted our team of legal experts and if the need arises we can also hire experts on doping policies to contest our case."

Pound also criticised the ICC for failing to take decisive action over the matter and said WADA would exercise its responsibility in the case.

"If we are successful in this, I think it will be a matter of considerable embarrassment to the ICC that it did not act," Pound said in the interview.

Ashraf said this week that the issue was an internal matterfor Pakistan and WADA regulations did not apply to it.

In response, Pound said: "Our job is to monitor compliance with the world anti-doping code which prohibits the substances the two cricketers took.

"In cases of that nature, there are sanctions that are meant to be applied and in our view they have been improperly applied.

"You cannot have in an anti-doping system an individual national federation purporting to act without regard to the rules of the international federation which has adopted the code," he said.

i cant believe pcb is defending shoaib and asif

They are defending the tribunal and procedure that cleared both Shoaib and Asif, which they have every right in doing.

They are defending the concept of justice, not Shoaib and Asif as such.

You have to try and understand some very basic concepts here.

The issue is one of SOVEREIGNITY.

Morality has nothing as such to do with it.

I do believe you are confusing the two.

shock, horror. A national cricket board protecting its players. Whether you agree with it or not, it shouldn't be unbelievable.

once the players were declared innocent by a PCB inquiry, the PCB has evry right in backing its players. im really fed up with all these foreign countird thinking that pakistan cant conduct a proper inquiry. they think a verdict is fair only if its according to their wishes. PCB has its own rules and they were followed. PCB now should protect its players at every cost, and i think if the PCB win this case, they should sue WADA if possible to teach them a lesson not to interfere in PCB's internal matters.