OTHER SPORT

DRUGS ALLEGATIONS STILL HAUNT ABEL

Boro defender Abel Xavier says he will always be linked with drugs

Thursday April 5,2007

By Niall Hickman

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(0)

WHILE swimming legend Ian Thorpe reels from the drug allegations made against him this week, Abel Xavier has protested his innocence once again and admitted the stain of scandal never goes away.

Thorpe, the five-times Olympic champion who is now retired, returned a drug test last May with abnormal levels of testosterone and luteinizing hormone.

He denies any wrongdoing and awaits a Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing in a bid to clear his name, but he admitted: “When something like this happens, you get tarnished with a kind of black spot.”

Xavier could not agree more. The Middlesbrough defender knows his name will forever be tainted following his positive test for anabolic steroids two years ago.

Xavier has always emphatically denied using methandrostenolone, or dianabol, but he admitted some of the mud sticks.

“I will be known as drug cheat Abel Xavier, even though I was innocent,” he said. “It made me even more determined to bounce back and to show everyone that I was not wrong, that what happened to me made me stronger. I wanted to show my kids that I would not let something like that beat me and I am now back, playing football and enjoying it.

I will be known as drug cheat Abel Xavier

Abel Xavier

“As long as people judge me when they see me and meet me, then fine. The club did that and gave me another chance, which is all I wanted.”

Xavier, instantly recognisable due to his shock of blond hair and beard, won 20 Portugal caps and has travelled the Continent since making his international debut in 1993, playing for some of the biggest clubs in Europe including Benfica, Bari, PSV Eindhoven and Galatasaray and in the Premiership with Everton and Liverpool.

He failed a drugs test at the Skoda Xanthi ground in Greece following a UEFA Cup tie just a few weeks after he joined Boro from Roma in the summer of 2005.

UEFA banned him for 18 months which was reduced on appeal to 12. Boro kept faith in him and the 34-year-old was determined to return to Teesside to re-pay his debt.

“I wanted to come back and I only focused on one thing when I was out of the game, playing football again,” he said.

“I trained back in Portugal and kept myself very fit knowing that one day I would get my opportunity. The club was good enough to look at me on a trial basis and I was given another contract.

“The gaffer, the chairman and the fans all gave me the chance to prove myself and I hope I have done that.”

Xavier’s Riverside skipper George Boateng, meanwhile, has been carpeted by the club for suggesting Ronaldo will be “seriously injured” if he continues to take the mickey out of fellow players, following Boro’s FA Cup defeat at Manchester United a fortnight ago.

Ronaldo played tricks with the ball with seconds to go in their clash at Old Trafford, tempting James Morrison to make a violent lunge at him which earned the Boro midfielder an instant red card.

Boateng’s comments were picked up by Sir Alex Ferguson, who said the Dutchman should be punished by the FA for inciting reprisals, and Boro boss Gareth Southgate said: “I don’t think the comments George made were correct and we have dealt with it.”