Punish players or withdraw WADA clause: FICA

Melbourne:

The Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) has demanded that either ICC penalise Indian players, who missed the deadline to submit the WADA anti-doping form because of its 'whereabout clause', or withdraw the code.

Indian players have missed the July 31 deadline for submitting the information, voicing concerns about the security and practicality aspects associated with the WADA compliant code.

The code requires players to submit details in advance of their whereabouts for the next three months to facilitate effective out-of-competition testing.

As many as 11 Indian players are awaiting a meeting between the ICC and BCCI on Sunday to get their concerns addressed on the norms, which prescribe severe penalties in case of default.

"From a player association perspective, if the Indian players do not have to comply with the whereabouts provision or don't suffer penalties for not filing such information, then we will certainly be ensuring that ICC lift this obligation from the rest of the teams," FICA Chief Executive Tim May was quoted as saying by a cricket website.

"If the ICC is unable to convince Indian players to provide this information, ICC will find itself in a difficult situation because their universal policy will not be adhered to by all countries.

"ICC will either have to cite the Indian players for filing failures or relieve all other players from all other countries from the need to comply with this regulation. For the regulation to be operative, it must apply equally to all teams or not at all," he said.

The ICC put in place the WADA code from January 1 and has since conducted familiarisation sessions for all international players who were selected to the testing pool based on their then ICC rankings.

The Indian players were briefed on the norms by ICC officials during their New Zealand tour in March.

May, however, admitted the Indian players' concerns were similar to that raised by the FICA.

"My understanding is that Indian players have expressed significant concerns as to the confidentiality of the information that they provide - on a privacy and security standpoint.

"These are legitimate concerns which ICC will need to deal with in providing comfort to the players that their information is at all times secure," he said.