FIFA World Cup - No Doping Positives; Arrest in Ticketing Probe

(ATR) FIFA confirmed that there have been no positive doping tests so far at the World Cup.

At a briefing at the Maracana Stadium in Rio on Monday, FIFA’s chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak said that all 736 players had been tested for performance-enhancing drugs.

"We have not found any prohibitive substances... either prior or during competition," Dvorak said.

New doping tests were brought in for this year’s tournament and from now on FIFA will freeze samples to use in future tests, hoping to deter players from using performance-enhancing drugs.

Dvorak confirmed there had been around 1,000 separate tests undertaken - 777 from March to the start of the World Cup on June 12, plus another 232 during the tournament.

Arrest in Ticket Touting Probe

Ray Whelan, the director of FIFA World Cup’s VIP ticketing agency Match Hospitality, has been arrested in Rio de Janeiro as part of an investigation into ticket scalping at the tournament dubbed Operation Jules Rimet.

Whelan spent the night in a Rio jail. He was the 12th person to be arrested in connection with the ticketing scandal. Last week 131 tickets were sized by Brazilian police who say they have smashed an international ticket touting ring.

Match Hospitality had yesterday said in a statement that no staff member was involved in the scandal.

The company, which sells deluxe ticketing packages for the World Cup, said on Monday it had blocked the packages of its sub-agents Reliance Industries Ltd., Jet Set Sports and Pamodzi pending investigation into the illegal resale of World Cup tickets.

No punishment for Zuniga

FIFA also confirmed today that there would be no retrospective action taken against Colombia’s Juan Camilo Zuniga Mosquera for his foul on Brazil star Neymar, which ended the striker’s tournament.

The FIFA disciplinary committee expressed its deepest "regret" about the incident which left Neymar with a broken bone in his back.

But the commission's statement added that "no retrospective action can be taken by the FIFA disciplinary committee, since the incident involving the Colombian player Juan Camilo Zuniga Mosquera did not escape the match officials’ attention, which is the first of two cumulative and necessary conditions for art. 77 a) of the FDC to be applied".

The disciplinary committee also dismissed Brazil’s appeal for the withdrawal of the yellow card shown to their player Thiago Silva during the same match.

The appeal was seen to be an odd one as yellow cards shown to the right player cannot be rescinded, though FIFA still allowed an examination of the incident.

Written by Christian Radnedge.

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