FIVB cheats in doping case and violates IOC Code of Ethics
12.04.2007
By Marie V. ThesbjergIn an appeal to the Ethics Commission of the IOC, Professor Hans Peter Graf, president of the privately organised World Sport Ethics Commission accuses the vice president of the international volleyball federation FIVB, the Dominican Cristóbal Marte, of cheating in a doping case and acting contrary to the IOC Code of Ethics.
According to Graf, Marte has used his friendship with Acosta to avoid the sanctioning of a female player who tested positive in a doping test. At the 2006 FIVB World Championships in Tokyo, a Dominican female volleyball player was tested positive for anabolic steroids in a doping test for using a skin lotion.
“The female player as well as the leaders of the Dominican Team did not request to have a new control B done of the first positive control, thus admitting that the first control was in fact positive.
It has also been demonstrated that Mr. Cristobal Marte was overzealous in convincing his friend Mr. Ruben Acosta, President of the FIVB, to not sanction the female player but rather the team doctor, Mrs. Maria Josefina Cordero who, it is supposedly said, forced the female player, Miss Carrera, to use a special cream to treat a skin rash.
Ruben Acosta accepted not to sanction the female player Eveline Carrera, but instead to sanction the doctor of the team by a lifetime suspension,” Graf writes in a letter to WADA President Richard W. Pound enquiring about investigations and sanctions.
Cheating with player’s ages
Besides from being vice president of the FIVB and a close ally of Ruben Acosta, Cristóbal Marte is also a president of the North American and Caribbean volleyball federation NORCECA and an executive vice-president of the Dominican Republic National Volleyball Federation .
Therefore, Graf believes that Marte should also be held responsible for violating ethics by cheating with player’s ages.
During the 2006 Girl’s Youth Continental Volleyball Championships held in Mexico falsification of players’ ages resulted in Dominican Republic Volleyball Team qualifying.
“The Dominican Republic Volleyball Team qualified for the 2007 Youth World Championships to be held in Thailand, by allowing 4 women players whose ages exceed the regulatory age to play,” Graf states in a letter to FIVB President, Ruben Acosta dated 21 March 2007.
On the homepage of the rival international volleyball federation WVBF, Graf lays out evidence running back to 2001 that Dominican Republic Volleyball and its leaders are guilty of 30 cases of falsification of the age of female players during the Continental and World Girl’s and Women’s Junior Volleyball Tournaments.
“These are sad practices that complete a history of emblematic cheating, of evils that eat away at Volleyball, governed by NORCECA and the FIVB,” Graf writes.
Hans-Peter Graf founded the World Sport Ethics Commission in 2006 and it now serves as a kind of ethical committee for the World Volleyball and Beach Volleyball Federation which was founded by critics of the controversial FIVB-president Ruben Acosta in November 2006 inCopenhagen. Since its foundation, the new federation changed its name from FIABVB to WVBF.
In the letter to IOC Ethics Commission, Graf asks for sanctions.
“These deplorable offences deserve to be investigated by you, who undoubtedly will conduct sanctions against those people who, avid only for results, are shamelessly sacrificing the foundational principles of the Olympic movement.”
FIVB and Acosta have previously violated the ethical rules of the IOC as stated in an IOC resolution from December 2003.
“The Tribunal considered the denounces against Ruben Acosta and founded him guilty of serious ethics offenses. Its recommendation to the Executive Board was returned to the Committee, due to the Acosta resignation and his change of status as IOC Member,” according to the website of the argentine WVBF board member Mario Goijman, www.volleygate.com
Links:
The World Sports Ethics Commission