Football: Fifa achieves Olympic agreement

Football will be part of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, despite Fifa's refusal to sign an Olympic doping accord. Fifa is the only governing body not to have signed the agreement, aimed at intensifying the fight against doping in sport through a single list of banned drugs and common sanctions against offenders. The accord specifically stipulates that only federations which comply can take part in the Games. But Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, told a press conference in Paris that Fifa had successfully argued that football should be treated as a special case. 'Not all federations are the same. They are all different,' he said. Fifa has refused to accept the idea of out-of-competition testing, arguing it is unnecessary in football, and has so far not adopted the IOC norms of a two-year minimum ban for performance-enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids. The IOC also announced today that taekwondo and triathlon have both won places at the 2000 Games in Sydney.