FA plan drugs crackdown

New Football Association chief executive Mark Palios will meet top anti-drugs officials in the next 10 days in a bid to improve English football's poor reputation in the fight against doping.

Standard Sport understands that former professional footballer Palios has already arranged a meeting with Britain's leading antidoping campaigner, Michele Verroken, of UK Sport, just a few weeks after taking charge at the FA.

The FA have been heavily criticised for being lenient on drug cheats. Sports Minister Richard Caborn warned football's governing body in March that they could be in danger of losing millions of pounds in Government funding if they didn't deal with players who failed drug tests in the same way as they do in other sports.

Palios, a former City troubleshooter who has been hired for his financial expertise, knows the FA cannot afford to lose annual funds of £ 20million for grassroots football at a time when the body faces a £757m bill for rebuilding Wembley. Caborn highlighted the cocaine case of former Chelsea goalkeeper Mark Bosnich after the FA handed the Australian a ban of nine months, instead of the recommended two years.

A recent survey also revealed that more than one in 20 footballers claim to know other players who have taken performance- enhancing drugs.

At the centre of the talks will be the new World Anti-Doping Agency code, adopted by Olympic sports and backed by the British government at an historic world drugs conference in Copenhagen in March.