The French rugby club Toulon have been caught up in a preliminary investigation into certain pharmacists in their home city.
The French anti-doping agency contacted the state prosecutor in Marseille in May over suspicions that pharmacists in Toulon, home of the triple European champions, could have been illegally supplying the club with substances including antibiotics, painkillers and anabolic steroids, the radio station RTL reported.
At a press conference, the Toulon rugby club's president Mourad Boudjellal dismissed outright any allegation of the club acquiring banned drugs, saying Toulon "is not affected by this doping affair". He said the inquiry was not into the club but into "a health-service scam in which a pharmacist who used to work with the club a long time ago is implicated".
"There is no doping at this club," he said, adding that his team faced stringent controls. He said he "firmly believed" someone was out to get the club in order to damage its head coach, Bernard Laporte, who is in the running to head the French Rugby Federation. "There are people who might have an interest in sullying us," Boudjellal said.
Earlier, the Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin confirmed to Le Monde that an inquiry into "an infringement of the code on medication-sales" had been launched into pharmacists in the Toulon area.
But he cautioned that although the rugby club’s name appears as part of the ongoing investigations, no allegations had yet been proven and investigators were “far from that point”. He said he was concerned that he kept hearing the media refer to “doping” when all elements in the inquiry remained to be proved.
Le Monde reported that the investigation is also looking at the possibility of a health service fraud after gendarmes searched one pharmacy and found the health cards of several Toulon rugby club players.
Four players from Toulon have been selected for the France World Cup squad - Guilhem Guirado, Sébastien Tillous-Borde, Frédéric Michalak and Mathieu Bastareaud - although there is no suggestion that any of them are connected with the investigation.
(Guardian service)
