12 month ban for Stanislaus

ROGER STANISLAUS is set to be sacked by Leyton Orient next week after being banned for 12 months for drug abuse by the English FA yesterday. The 27 year old defender is the first footballer caught using a performance enhancing drug in two seasons of post match tests.

But the authorities still sent a tough message to the rest of the game with their unprecedented suspension four months more than Eric Cantona got for kicking a fan, their heaviest for 30 years and only three months short of that given to Diego Maradona for his offence at the World Cup. They are backed by Orient chairman Barry Hearn and the players' union, who were at yesterday's disciplinary hearing.

As the player was shepherded away from Lancaster Gate without comment after the three hour hearing, sports impressario Hearn said "I am very disappointed by anyone (who uses drugs) and I am totally opposed, as the club is, to any form of drug abuse both in society and sport.

"I am not going to pre empt anything but my personal views on drugs are well known. There will be an emergency board meeting next Tuesday morning.

"Obviously we would want to be supportive of any player if possible. But the most important part of any chairman's responsibilities is the good name of his football club and that over riding factor comes before anything else."

Brendan Batson, the assistant secretary of the PFA, said "Everyone in the game wants to show the football public and the wider public that there is no problem with drugs in football. We now have the procedure in place. This is a serious case and is reflected in the punishment."

Stanislaus, a former Highbury apprentice, was suspended by his club the moment it was revealed he had tested positive for cocaine after taking a random test following Orient's 3-0 defeat at Barnet in a third division match on November 25th

He is not the first player caught using drugs in England last season there were 12 positive results from 272 tests, but all were either accidents or for social abuse of drugs.

Stanislaus, in contrast, is the first suspected of using drugs to boost performance, though he told the three man commission that he had smoked a banned substance at a family funeral on the Thursday evening two days before the game.

However medical evidence was presented that it would have taken a fatal dose to produce the results which showed up after the game. "Dr David Cowans stated the findings were consistent with a typical dose of cocaine being taken between one and six hours prior to the test sample being produced at 6.40pm on the day of the game," the FA said afterwards.