The attacker’s defense Gabigolof Flamengofiled this Tuesday (2) with a request for a suspension of the two-year punishment for attempted fraud in an anti-doping test.
The request from the player’s lawyers was made directly to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). There is still no date for the evaluation of the case, but, according to the ESPNthe expectation is for a return in April.
Gabigol is prevented from playing and training at Flamengo, and cannot even visit the club’s facilities. The deadline runs until April 7, 2025, according to a list published by ABCD (Brazilian Doping Control Authority).
As revealed by ESPNGabigol’s defense will be based on possible contradictions in the testimonies of agents in the TJD-AD (Anti-Doping Court of Sports Justice) trial, with the support of internal images from Flamengo’s CT on the day of the exam, carried out on April 8, 2023 .
ABCD states that the attacker failed to comply with crucial procedures for the test to be valid, which meant that the agents were unable to guarantee the integrity of the sample, that is, that the urine was in fact his. This was what caused the punishment.
ABCD’s version is that, when the agents arrived for the tests, all the athletes who would also be tested made themselves available for collection, as determined by the procedure. Gabigol was the only one who said he would do his training first, which still does not constitute an irregularity.
Here, there is a possible contradiction that Gabigol’s defense intends to explore. In testimony, one of the agents would have stated that the professionals arrived before the athlete, which would be contradicted by the internal circuit of Ninho do Urubu – in Flamengo’s version, the attacker arrives at 8 am, and the officers arrive at around 9 am.
According to international technical procedures, it is not a problem for Gabigol to train before the test. The only issue is that, due to the type of analysis that would be performed, it would be necessary to wait a two-hour interval for blood collection. And it is during this period that the attacker’s failures occur.
A source heard by ESPN states that there were several procedures not observed by Gabigol, which meant that the agents were unable to confirm that the urine was in the required conditions. This invalidates the test – therefore, the negative test result had little bearing on the trial – and leads to the accusation of attempted fraud and subsequent suspension.
The defense also wants to demonstrate a possible contradiction in the version presented by the agents interviewed. According to sources present at the trial, an ABCD officer reported that he saw urine coming out of Gabigol’s urethra at the time of collection.
Gabigol’s defense understands that this suspensive effect is the only move capable of making the attacker return to playing while still under his current contract with Flamengo, which ends in December. This is because the judgment of the appeal itself should not take place before the end of the 2024 season.
