The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) wants to investigate whether any charges can be brought against Andre Agassi following his admission that he lied after taking crystal meth in 1997 and failing a drugs test.
Agassi’s revelations in extracts of his autobiography Open, published last week, stunned the tennis world.
“He took something from the banned list in 1997, we can’t do much about that because it’s outside the statute of limitations, the eight-year bar,” WADA director general David Howman said on Sunday.
“Two things need a little bit more inquiry, if he’s lied, and he’s confessed he lied, so he’s obviously lied and he lied under oath then I think that warrants further investigation to see whether there might be any other charges,” he said.
“We all know about Marion Jones, she lied to a tribunal, it can’t just be one of those things you get away with,” he added in reference to the US sprinter who served a six-month prison term for lying to federal prosecutors about her drug use.
“The second issue is, he had a lawyer represent him, does his lawyer know that he was lying? Maybe something can be done in relation to that,” he said.
After failing a drugs test, Agassi wrote a letter to the ATP asking for leniency because he had accidentally drunk a “spiked soda” belonging to his assistant.
Agassi received no punishment from the governing body of men’s tennis.
WADA has an eight-year limit on punishment for doping offences but last week pole vault legend Sergei Bubka, a committee member on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Agassi should be penalized for taking banned substances.
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