Cannavaro doping doctors in court

Two Juventus club doctors who gave a banned drug to Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro after he was stung by a wasp are facing a three-month suspension from football.

That is the recommendation put forward by Italian Olympic Committee (Coni) prosecutors on Thursday for Bartolomeo Goitre and Luca Stefanini.

Cannavaro failed a dope test in late August after taking a medicine that contained the banned substance cortisone, given to him by his club’s doctors, after he was stung by a wasp.

The former World Player of the Year then requested a doping exemption on the grounds that it was emergency medication but his request was missing a document and while awaiting a decision he was subjected to an anti-doping test, which returned a positive result.

Coni then announced in mid-October that it was dismissing the case against him, after which Cannavaro launched a furious tirade at the press for their coverage of the incident.

“I have a clean conscience. Someone gets stung by a bee and then he finds themselves in the newspapers as if he had doped,” he said at the time.

“When that happened I thought I was dreaming. Some newspapers and television stations went too far.”