Rio Ferdinand, England's most expensive footballer, will miss the second half of the football season, including next summer's Euro 2004 finals, after he was banned for eight months yesterday for failing to provide a sample to drug testers. He was also fined £50,000 plus costs.
The Manchester United defender's punishment, a record for the offence, begins on January 12th and will mean he misses more than 30 matches for club and country. It was reached after 17 hours of deliberation by a three-man Football Association disciplinary panel at the Reebok stadium in Bolton.
The announcement of the ban shortly after 8 p.m. met a furious reaction from Manchester United. Club director Mr Maurice Watkins, who led Ferdinand's legal team at the hearing, said: "We are extremely disappointed by the result and in particular the savage and unprecedented sentence that makes an appeal inevitable. I can confirm that Rio has the full backing of Manchester United and the Professional Footballers' Association."
Mr Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the PFA, said: "We knew there would have to be a penalty but an eight-month ban and a £50,000 fine is I feel very draconian."
But Mr Dick Pound, chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), who has called for harsher penalties to be imposed on drug cases in football, said he was content with the punishment. Football has yet to sign up to Wada's strict anti-doping code and has been criticised for being soft on drugs.
Mr Pound said: "Ferdinand should be careful about an appeal because the sentence could be increased. "He has done well to get away with what he's got and the FA is sending out a bad message by letting him continue to play."
Ferdinand (25) left without comment after the hearing, but his next public appearance could come tomorrow, when he is likely to play for his club at Tottenham Hotspur.
Under the FA's appeals procedure, the panel has 48 hours to provide him with a written explanation of its decision, and Ferdinand then has 14 days to lodge his appeal.
The eight-month suspension exceeded most expectations. The maximum penalty for the offence is two years, but many observers expected him to face a three-month ban.
In the most recent similar case Manchester City's Christian Negouai was fined £2,000 and subject to target testing for failing to provide a sample. This precedent, and a number of apparent flaws in the FA's doping control, will form the basis of any appeal.
The panel's unanimous decision will dismay the England coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson, who objected to Ferdinand's expulsion from the England squad following the offence on September 23rd, and provided a character reference to the two-day hearing.
The verdict came 87 days after Ferdinand failed to provide a sample to anti-doping officials at United's Carrington training ground. Ferdinand claimed he innocently forgot to take the test and offered to return to provide a sample as soon as he remembered.
- Guardian Service.