Drugs In Sport: Caborn calls for tougher doping code

The sports minister, Richard Caborn, is to press for all governing bodies to be obliged to name drug-takers when an international code on doping in sport is agreed in March by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

"Naming people who have tested positive for drugs and been disciplined by their governing bodies is a deterrent," said Caborn yesterday. "We need to be tough and I will be pushing for it to be included in the code when we meet to endorse it in Copenhagen on 5 March."

The Football Association has become embroiled in a row after the case of a footballer, who tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone was dealt with and disciplined but had his identity kept secret.

Caborn will have an ally in Dick Pound, the head of WADA, who this week called on the FA to name those who test positive for banned substances.

"I think they should always be named," said Pound. "I think it is important the results be announced as there is a deterrent effect in catching people who are cheating and exposing them as cheats. Everybody would then have much more confidence in the whole system."

But Nic Coward, the FA's acting chief executive, said it had not been appropriate to name the player in the nandrolone case due to "clinical reasons".

* The Spanish cross-country skier Johann Mühlegg has lost his appeals against a doping ban, the Court of Arbitration for Sport announced yesterday. Mühlegg was banned for two years by the International Skiing Federation after he tested positive at last year's Winter Olympics, where he won three gold medals. He is now banned until February 2004. The German-born Mühlegg was stripped of his title in the 50km classical event, but the International Olympic Committee allowed him to keep his medals from the 30km freestyle and combined pursuit events, which he won before testing positive for the blood-boosting drug darbepoetin.