Euroscene: This is the story of a "film" that is unlikely ever to make it to your local cinema. The action takes place in Room 712 of the Grand Hotel Marriott in Moscow. The date is Tuesday, May 11th, 1999, eve of the Uefa Cup final between Serie A side Parma and French team Olympique Marseilles (Parma won 3-0).

For the occasion, Room 712 has been turned into a physiotherapist's clinic with the Parma team doctor, Luca Montagna, and team physiotherapist Corrado Gatti, both busy helping various players prepare for the following day's final.

All of this we are able to see thanks to the amateur "camera work" of (then) Parma and Italy defender Fabio Cannavaro who has walked into Room 712 with his own cam-camera in hand, filming all that goes before him and, in this case, all that goes into him. As Cannavaro lies down on the doctor's couch, we see him being attached to an intravenous drip. Furthermore, as Dr Montagna prepares the medicine that will be administered to Cannavaro, we see that it is called "Neoton", a product not listed on the World Anti Doping Agency's (WADA) list of banned substances but one which is normally used in the treatment of patients with heart problems.

The Parma team doctor carefully places a needle into Cannavaro's left arm and then attaches it to the drip containing the "Neoton".

Clearly, Cannavaro's four and a half minute long "film" was never intended for public viewing. Clearly, too, his running commentary, whilst in questionable taste, was meant to be a joke.

None of that, however, stopped the Cannavaro film becoming a major source of polemical controversy when it was aired on state broadcaster RAI last Thursday night.

Remarkably, however, whilst one or two commentators pointed an accusatory finger at alleged doping practises in football, the vast majority of Italian coaches argued that the whole thing had been blown out of proportion.

Many argued that the Neoton had been used as a "restorative", a sort of multi-vitamin feed necessary for tired players.

Many also suggested that such practises were par for the course: "You see scenes like that in dressing rooms all over the world", said Palermo coach Francesco Guidolin.

"All teams and clubs use drips, with the consensus of the player of course," said Lazio coach Giorgio Papadopulo. (Under WADA regulations, such drips, legal in 1999, are now banned).

In contrast, however, the Lecce coach, Czech Zdenek Zeman, the man who in 1998 first denounced widespread doping abuse in Italian football, continued to ask a simple question. Why do healthy young athletes need medicines normally used for heart patients?

Remarkably, even that question prompted an intriguing answer from one of his most successful colleagues, AC Milan coach, Carlo Ancelotti, who said: "An athlete is not a healthy person, rather one under huge physical stress. Training and playing matches are genuinely stressful and they leave their mark. What surprises me is that accomplished medics fail to understand this."

All of this might sound like a storm in a tea cup were it not for one uncomfortable consideration. Is it not possible that the "off label" use of medicines - i.e. using pharmaceutical products for purposes other than for which they were intended - may not in the end have an effect similar to doping?

That was certainly the prosecution's thesis in the infamous "Juventus" doping case which concluded last November with Juventus club doctor Ricardo Agricola being given a 22-month suspended prison sentence by a Turin court.

Then, too, throughout the Juventus trial, rumours continued to circulate to the effect that Juventus were far from the only club involved in such questionable practises. As always, however, it would seem that the sports jury is still out.