City’s ‘soft’ £35,000 anti-doping fine to spark disciplinary overhaul

The Football Association has vowed to overhaul its disciplinary sanctions amid concern about lenient punishments after Manchester City were fined just £35,000 and warned about their future conduct yesterday for breaching antidoping rules.

City were charged by the FA last month after failing on three occasions to ensure their ‘whereabouts’ information was accurate. Clubs are required to provide up-to-date details of training sessions and player whereabouts so they are available for testing at all times.

With guidelines recommending fines of around £25,000 for such breaches, an independent regulatory commission was restricted in terms of the punishment it could dish out and the FA is understood to recognise that the existing framework is inadequate.

As such, the governing body intends to review all its sanctioning guidelines, including those relating to the disciplinary behaviour of clubs, managers and players during games, with the aim of establishing a more robust punishment system.

Of more immediate concern to City is the fitness of Gabriel Jesus, who is expected to have surgery on his broken metatarsal in Barcelona today, with manager Pep Guardiola hopeful that the striker could return in two months.

The Brazilian flew to the Spanish city yesterday to be assessed by orthopaedic surgeon Dr Ramón Cugat. Jesus suffered the fracture in his right foot during the first half of City’s 2-0 win at Bournemouth on Monday.

Meanwhile, Guardiola will take his squad to Abu Dhabi next Wednesday, the day after the first leg of their Champions League round-of-16 tie at home to Monaco, for a short warm-weather training break. City do not play again until they face Sunderland away in the Premier League on March 4. Guardiola will also meet the City chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, and the club’s Abu Dhabi hierarchy.