By David Gold
March 23 – Carlos Queiroz’s appeal against six month ban from all football and sporting activities has been successful, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has announced.
Quieroz was banned for interfering with anti-doping officers’ attempts to conduct an unannounced drugs test with the Portuguese national team prior to the World Cup.
The incident occurred at the Portuguese national team’s training camp in Covilha prior to last summer’s tournament.
Quieroz, who was the national team coach at the time, had a dicsussion with anti-doping officers which led to the former Manchester United assistant coach making distasteful comments towards the officers from the Portuguese Anti-Doping Authority.
Though he was initially acquitted of breaking any rules, he was banned from sporting activities for 30 days, before the Instituto de Deporte de Portugal found him to be in breach of an anti-doping rule violation and issued the six month ban.
But the CAS have ruled that Quieroz had valid grounds for appeal, and noted that he had himself admitted that his behaviour was wrong, but believed that it did not interefere in the sample collection process.
The court said: “While the panel found the behaviour of Mr Queiroz unacceptable, it did not find that such behaviour disturbed the sample collection process or the work of the anti-doping officers”
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