Doping bans to become worldwide -- FIFA
( 2001-07-06 10:30 ) (7 )

Soccer's governing body FIFA announced on Thursday that bans on players who fail dope tests would automatically become worldwide.

However, suspensions for using false passports would be restricted to the country in which they are imposed, said FIFA president Sepp Blatter after an executive committee meeting.

The decisions announced by FIFA mean that Dutch international Edgar Davids and Portugal's Fernando Couto cannot play for their countries for the time being, but Brazil goalkeeper Dida and Uruguay striker Alvaro Recoba can.

Davids and Couto were banned in Italy, where they play their league football, after testing positive for illegal substances. The Dutch and Portuguese football associations then protested to FIFA that the suspensions were "unlawful".

Dida and Recoba were among more than a dozen players suspended by the Italian Football League after being found guilty of using false passports to beat regulations limiting the number of non-EU players a team can field.

"The scourges of society are gradually starting to creep into football such as drug abuse, forgeries of passports, match fixing and other kinds of illicit behaviour which the morals and ethics of football reject," said Blatter. "We have to fight for clarity and transparency."

Meanwhile, FIFA secretary general Michel Zen Ruffinen announced that Lebanon had been suspended following problems in the country's federation, and that a delegation from soccer's governing body would visit the country in September.

On this year's cancelled World Club Championship, he said FIFA had decided to give each of the participating clubs US$250,000 in addition to the US$500,000 they had already received.

Zen Ruffinen added that the next tournament would go ahead in 2003. A meeting in August will decide the venue and criteria for qualifying.