MILAN. Italy, Sept 8: Italian sport is being rocked to its foundations by a drugs scandal just days before the start of the new football season, reports AFP.
What started a month ago with a drugs warning by A S Roma coach Zdenek Zeman has mushroomed into a series of judicial enquiries — topped by last weekend's revelations that Italy's anti-drugs campaign has been a fraud.
A crisis meeting is due this week between Deputy Prime Minister Walter Veltroni. who also has the sports portfolio, and Mario Pescante. President of the national Olympic committee (CONI), which doubles as the sports ministry.
Pescante. whose future as the most important figure in Italian sports is at stake, was sending a written report to Veltroni on Monday evening. The deputy premier said he would need 24 hours before forming an opinion.
At stake, is not only the credibility of the CONI's commitment to fight drugs, but also the credibility of Italian football itself. And at the centre of both, is the CONI-approved test laboratory at Acqua Acetosa.
According to the rules, the laboratory should test all 4.000 samples given each year by Serie A ana B footballers, checking for everything from stimulants to steroids. Clubs pay 400.000 lira (230 dollars) for each test sample.
The results should then be kept for two years, in the case of negative tests, and five years when the sample proves posi-
However. It has now emerged that the lab was looking for steroids in only 10 per cent of the samples passing through the laboratory until last year, when Its new chief, professor Giorgio Santllll, took charge. . .
Santllll claims to have increased that percentage to 30.
but insists that the unit is now working at maximum capacity.
Worse still, all the results have been systematically thrown away after just two months, and there were reportedly little or no checks carried out for masking agents.
Not surprisingly. Acqua Acetosa has enjoyed pride of place in the International Olympic Committee’s list of approved laboratories around the world, with the lowest number of reported test failures.
Pescante, along with the Italian football federation (FIGC) president Luciano Niz-zola, initially said he knew nothing of the goings-on at Acqua Acetosa, quickly pointing out that although working for the CONI, it is technically owned and run by Santilli's Medico-sports Federation.
However, that position appeared to be softening on Monday evening.
Asked about the practices. Pescante admitted: "in the past, some of the signals that were coming out of the laboratory were taken in too much good faith.”
He added that supervisors would be drafted into the lab from outside, with the aim of monitoring operations.
Pressed further as to whether he knew what had been going on there for the past decade. Pescante weighed his Words carefully: "among the duties of the CONI president is also the task of monitoring, but with 39 federations and other duties to attend to. you must realise."
He added, however, that: “I am the president of the CONI and therefore 1 cannot say that 1 didn't know. Perhaps, though, the expected guarantees were not being respected."
Whether or not the CONI or the FIGC knew in detail about the practices which were com-jnon at the Acqua Acetosa laboratory. both sides know now that action needs to be taken.
and quickly.
For in the words of Italy's most influential sports journalist. Gazzetta Dello Sport editor Candido Canavo. the problem is not just one of drugs but if the "loss, and a dramatic one at that, of credibility.
"And that, gentleman of the CONI." he wrote, "is something very difficult to get back.'"