Agassi doping case not a dead issue – WADA

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) wants to investigate whether any charges can be brought against Andre Agassi following his admission that he lied after taking crystal meth in 1997 and failing a drugs test.

Agassi’s revelations in extracts of his autobiography “Open”, published last week in The Times newspaper in Britain, cast a shadow over the eight-times grand slam champion’s glittering career.

“He took something from the banned list in 1997, we can’t do much about that because it’s outside the statute of limitations, the eight-year bar,” WADA director general David Howman told Reuters.

“If he’s lied, and he’s confessed he lied, so he’s obviously lied and he lied under oath then I think that warrants further investigation.

“We all know about Marion Jones, she lied to a tribunal, it can’t just be one of those things you get away with,” he added in reference to the American sprinter who served a six-month prison term for lying to federal prosecutors about her drug use.

“The second issue is, he had a lawyer represent him, does his lawyer know that he was lying?

“Maybe something can be done in relation to that.”

After failing a drugs test, Agassi wrote a letter to the ATP asking for leniency because he had accidentally drunk a “spiked soda” belonging to his assistant.

Agassi received no punishment from ATP.