Frankie to fight 'flawed, inconsistent' ruling
By LIAM HEAGNEY.

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EUROPEAN Rugby Cup Limited could ultimately find itself dragged through the courts if Frankie Sheahan's forthcoming appeal to reverse the two-year playing ban imposed on him on Friday evening isn't lifted in the weeks ahead. Sheahan's suspension, handed down by the all-Scottish three-man independent judicial tribunal, hinged on the player recording high levels of the banned substance salbutamol through his use of a Ventolin inhaler to combat asthma.

ERC, in announcing the ban, highlighted that the Munster hooker's levels for samples taken on April 26 in the wake of the European Cup semi-final in Toulouse were 20 times greater than the level in a sample taken from Sheahan 13 days earlier following the quarterfinal game at Leicester.

However Paul Derham, Sheahan's solicitor, insisted that the tribunal failed to properly apply the 2002-2003 European Cup anti-doping programme when drawing its conclusion that the player's use of his inhaler wasn't just to properly treat his asthma. Explaining that the European Cup's anti-doping programme followed the International Olympic Committee's prohibited list of substances from 2001 and did not include a cut-off point of 1,000ng/ml in determining the legitimacy of the presence of salbutamol, Derham said: 'We need three people [at the appeal tribunal] who will acknowledge and confirm that, in accordance with the laws of the 2001 list, there are no levels of salbutamol applicable. 'We have to get a tribunal that has the ability to read its own rules to confirm that if inhaled, then there are no levels applicable. That is the law. 'There is a course of action that we can go before the courts to make an argument that the tribunal and the appeal tribunal, if it doesn't clear Frankie's name, did not abide by its own rules, but that's only a possibility for now.

One of the requirements of the process we're in is that we first exhaust all avenues within the system.' Intriguingly, the IOC's prohibited list for 2003, a list not endorsed in ERC's own rules, does outline that a cut-off point of 1,000ng/ml exists for salbutamol. However, even the IOC itself has recently fallen back from supporting that cut-off point. Their medical director Patrick Schamasch and medical council chairman Arnie Ljungkbist issued a statement on July 3 claiming that under IOC anti-doping rules that salbutamol, a substance allowed by inhalation, can exceed 1,000ng/ml.

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SUSPENDED MUNSTER hooker Frankie Sheahan has less than two weeks to save his rugby career and rekindle his ambitions of playing for Ireland at this year's World Cup finals in Australia. His defence team, led by solicitor and friend Paul Derham, have until Friday week to set out the grounds for their appeal against the two-year ban handed down on Friday by the ERC's three-man independent Judicial Tribunal.

And the grounds for appeal will be controversial, accusing the ERC tribunal which sat last Monday in Dublin of reaching their decision without applying the rules as set down under their own 2002-2003 European Cup anti-doping programme.

In justifying the suspension imposed on Sheahan, the tribunal, which consisted of Professors Lorne Crerar (chairman) and Donald MacLeod and Peter Brown, a former Scottish international, emphasised that the levels of the prohibited substance salbutamol found in Sheahan's A and B samples taken on April 26 in Toulouse were 1,644ng/ml and 1,764ng/ml respectively. They added that they were 20 times in excess the level found in a sample of 80ng/ml taken from Sheahan following the European Cup quarter-final at Leicester 13 days earlier.

However, in drawing that conclusion and banning the 26-year-old from playing, Derham denounced the tribunal's decision of being 'confusing, inconsistent and patently flawed' because it failed to take into account that law-breaking levels for the presence of salbutamol when inhaled via an inhaler rather than ingested as an anabolic steroid are not applicable.

This, explained the solicitor, is contained in the 2002-2003 European Cup anti-doping programme which follows the International Olympic Committee's prohibited list of substances from 2001. The IOC's prohibited list for 2003, a list not endorsed in ERC's own rules, does outline a cut- off point of 1,000ng/ml.

However, even the IOC themselves have fallen back from that cut-off point, their medical director Patrick Schamasch and medical council chairman Arnie Ljungkbist issuing a statement on July 3 claiming that under IOC anti-doping rules that salbutamol, a substance allowed by inhalation, can, at times, exceed 1,000ng/ml. 'Within 10 minutes of the tribunal starting they began referring to levels, so we explained to them ad nauseam that the levels were not appropriate,' explained Derham. 'Every time they referred back to the levels, we kept on asking them why.

Then we asked them to make a ruling on it but they reserved that ruling and in fact, they never made a ruling in announcing their findings to acknowledge that the 1,000ng/ml level was not applicable. 'We just need three people on that tribunal who will read and understand the laws of the European Cup competition which that tribunal [last Monday] did not. We need three people who will acknowledge and confirm that, in accordance with those laws, there are no levels applicable. 'The tribunal we sat before got themselves hung up on levels, which were not applicable because under the Heineken Cup 2002-2003 regulations there is a permitted use for salbutamol if notified and they refer to the 2001 IOC regulations, which just simply state that if salbutamol is inhaled it is permissible.

The tribunal sitting could not understand that. 'I believe salbutamol can be used as an anabolic steroid but that you can't inhale it in enough quantities for that purpose. You have to take it in tablet form. Also, the logic of Frankie Sheahan (who has been asthmatic since 1977) using an anabolic steroid in the middle of a season to put on muscle mass ? salbutamol is not a stimulant, it doesn't enhance your performance on the pitch ? is ridiculous. 'A player does not need increased body mass between a quarter-final and a semi-final of the European Cup, so it makes sense that they would consider he was using it as an anabolic steroid in that period.'

Derham continued that Professor Kenneth Duncan Fitch, a renowned anti-doping expert, was commissioned by ERC to test the residue of Sheahan's April 26 A sample. Fitch confirmed that all the salbutamol present was inhaled, clearing the player of any wrongdoing under the Heineken Cup 2002-2003 anti-doping regulations.

The tribunal, however, despite submissions from Fitch and Cork-based professor of pharmacology, Perry Leary, deemed the residue test to be potentially contaminated because it was conducted in Barcelona rather than Paris, where the A and B samples were tested. Another factor that Derham will be keen to reiterate during the appeal is that the conditions experienced in Toulouse were so much more severe than those in Leicester that Sheahan had to use his inhaler at halftime in the semifinal. 'They drew a distinction between the Leicester and the Toulouse games in giving the levels of salbutamol in their finding. But what they failed to acknowledge was the difference conditions. 'There was up to a 57 per cent humidity differential and both sets of medical experts [ERC's and Sheahan's] confirmed that humidity have a very distinct effect on dehydration.

The 64,000 dollar question is why the tribunal did not back the evidence from ERC's own guy. There can be a gross distortion of findings because what happens when the humidity is that high is that the body can't sweat, so all the waste is stored in the liver and the kidneys. 'When a player rehydrates, that waste runs out in the first wash and that's what they tested. After the game in Toulouse, Frankie took up to nine litres of water and even at that level, he couldn't pass the full amount of the sample. It took him over and hour and three quarters to supply the sample where it took him just 40 minutes in Leicester.'

Mindful that much work awaits in the days ahead in defining the grounds for appeal which, if it takes place, will do so with a totally different adjudicating panel, Derham, who did admit that court action was a possibility if the appeal's outcome was not satisfactory, reflected: 'This process certainly hasn't done Frankie Sheahan justice. We have to get some tribunal that has the ability to read its own rules and confirm that if salbutamol is inhaled, then there are no levels applicable. That is the law. 'Frankie is a hugely straightforward, honest, forthright type of a fella and rugby is his entire life. What this has done is taken his life right from under him completely. All his ambitions, all his aspirations all centred on performance for Munster and Ireland. That's all that drives him and they have taken away everything that he has stood for. He is absolutely devastated.'