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lovablemum
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 4068
Location: Northants
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| Tell a Friend Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 10:36 pm Post subject: CANED AND ABEL |
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ABEL XAVIER is facing the sack from Middlesbrough and a life ban from football - unless he wins a legal battle to overturn a positive drugs test.
The Portuguese defender will claim he is innocent of deliberately taking a performance-enhancing drug and launch a fight to save his career.
Xavier, on a £25,000-a-week one-year deal, will say he was taking a supplement he imports from America to combat a virus and has been unwittingly tested positive.
Middlesbrough are standing by their player until a B-sample is tested, but the club had no knowledge of any extra supplements that he was taking privately.
The 32-year-old was routinely tested after Boro drew 0-0 at Greeks Xanthi on September 29 and the club revealed last night the sample was positive without detailing what the offending substance is.
UEFA officials have been asked by Xavier and his legal team to test his B-sample and will hold a meeting on Monday to discuss the player's future.
Xavier will issue a statement through his lawyers this morning and Middlesbrough are expected to also react. The crisis has broken just three days before their UEFA Cup group stage match at Grasshoppers Zurich on Thursday.
But Boro will not be kicked out of the UEFA Cup because one player has tested positive. UEFA ruled in February 2004 punishment for doping offences will be suffered by individual players rather than teams.
Xavier, who has played for ten clubs and joined Boro in August. And he has won the backing of Gordon Taylor, with the PFA chief executive saying: "Although it is a UEFA case and not a domestic one, he is one of our members so we have to stand by him." |
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~~debbydo~~
Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 19959
Location: Hertfordshire
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| Tell a Friend Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| :-D |
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lovablemum
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 4068
Location: Northants
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| Tell a Friend Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Love the face |
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Macs34
Joined: 25 Mar 2004
Posts: 3467
Location: Kenya
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| Tell a Friend Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 5:31 am Post subject: |
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| I wish this things (drugs) en stuff will just get out of matches! :smt012 |
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lovablemum
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 4068
Location: Northants
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| Tell a Friend Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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| So do I Macs |
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