English FA chief executive Mark Palios was praised by FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Sunday for his firm handling of this month's crisis in which England's players threatened to strike in support of Rio Ferdinand.
Blatter, who also promised that world soccer's governing body would step up its fight against drug cheats in the sport, said he had spoken to Palios and told him he was "happy he had reacted the way he had done."
Earlier, in his opening address, Blatter had referred several times to the recent controversy in England where defender Ferdinand was left out of the national squad after failing to attend a mandatory drugs test.
The Manchester United player, who was tested two days later and found to be negative, said he forgot to have the test.
Blatter told reporters Palios had congratulated the FIFA president on the success of the Extraordinary Congress on Sunday and he had, in turn, congratulated Palios "on the way, the week before, he had dealt with the national players."
Blatter added: "I was very happy he reacted this way. We need understanding and respect for our institutions in football and proper discipline and respect is very important. It is paramount for the future."
The England players threatened to strike and boycott their European Championship qualifying decider against Turkey on Oct. 11, but they later backed down and played out a goalless draw that saw the team reach next year's finals in Portugal.
Blatter said their actions were deplorable and warned that "one doping case would be one too many. We must keep our sport clean."
Palios said leaving Ferdinand out of the England squad was a "policy decision" and said the outcome of the case against Ferdinand would only be known when all the due and necessary procedures had been completed.
He declined to comment further after learning of Blatter's praise for his position in the dispute with the England players.
During the congress, neurologist professor Jiri Dvorak reported that FIFA had recorded only one positive dope test out of 2,390 taken at its competitions since 1994.
The positive test was taken by Diego Maradona of Argentina during the 1994 World Cup finals.
Blatter praised the clean bill of health from all 32 teams at last year's World Cup finals and other tournaments but warned FIFA did not agree with World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) demands for a mandatory two-year suspension in all cases.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier