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Posted at 3:02 a.m., Thursday, January 29, 2009

Soccer: Brazil's Dodo fails to overturn 2-year doping ban

Associated Press

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Former Brazil striker Dodo has lost his bid to overturn a two-year ban for failing a doping test.

The Swiss Federal Tribunal said Thursday that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) was correct to impose the suspension last year in a case brought by football's world governing body FIFA and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Lawyers for Dodo failed to persuade Switzerland's supreme court that FIFA and WADA had no right to file an appeal with CAS after a Brazilian court cleared the player of wrongdoing.

Now aged 34, Dodo tested positive for the banned stimulant fenproporex after helping his club, Botafogo, beat Vasco 4-0 in a Brazilian league match in June 2007.

He was suspended for 30 days but, after passing two other doping tests, was cleared by Brazil's highest sports court.

When FIFA and WADA appealed that judgment, a CAS panel ruled that Dodo was responsible for the banned drug being present in his urine sample and imposed the ban.

Because CAS is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, the parties involved have the right to a final appeal at the country's supreme court.

A panel of three Swiss judges said Thursday that the Brazilian court was affiliated to its national football federation and so had to answer to FIFA as the ruling power in the sport.

It ordered Dodo to pay FIFA and WADA 6,000 Swiss francs ($5,200; euro4,000) each in compensation and 5,000 Swiss francs ($4,400; euro3,300) in court costs.

Dodo, who played five times for Brazil, is banned until Nov. 7 this year.