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- Servet Uzunlar (L) and Kim Carroll (R) pose during an Australian Matildas portra... © Ryan Pierse/ Getty Images
Australia's women's football team will not be competing in the London 2012 Olympic Games after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) decided not to appeal FIFA's ruling that North Korea can compete in London next year despite members of their team failing drugs tests at the World Cup earlier this year.
FIFA are responsible for organising the Olympic football tournaments, and though they have banned North Korea from competing at the next Women's World Cup in Canada in 2015, they have allowed them to compete in London, saying that their sanction was meant to apply only to the competition in which their players failed the drugs test
The Australian Olympic Committee had lodged the protest with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and WADA last week.
North Korea finished second in the women's qualifying tournament held in China in September, having beaten Australia 1-0 in their opening game, a result which proved crucial with their opponents finishing third overall, and just missing out on London.
Following its Foundation Board meeting yesterday, a spokesman for WADA told insidethegames that they had "carefully considered the award relating to all the sanctions handed out by FIFA to the North Korea women's team.
"WADA has taken the decision not to appeal bearing in mind the rules that were in place for the event," he said.
WADA point to their anti-doping code article 11.2, which states that if more than two members of a team commit an anti-doping violation during an event, it is the organiser of that event who will decide and impose an appropriate sanction, in this case FIFA.
David Gold
Inside the Games