After Second Test, Maradona Is Out of World Cup
Diego Maradona, the Argentine superstar with a history of fabled play on the  soccer field and drug use off it, was abruptly removed from World Cup play today because he had tested positive for five variants of ephedrine, a stimulant banned by soccer's international governing body.
The decision was announced at a news conference here six hours before Argentina played Bulgaria at the Cotton Bowl, losing 2-0. Maradona's appearance  tonight would have been a record 22d World Cup appearance for the 33-year-old Maradona, the team captain. He almost single-handedly led his country to a World Cup championship in 1986 and sparked the team again four years later when Argentina reached the tournament's final game, losing to West Germany.
While his age and a 15-month suspension for cocaine use in 1991-92 had led many to predict that he would not be a major factor in this tournament, Maradona scored a goal and an assist in first-round victories over Greece and Nigeria, and showed some of his dazzling dribbling form of old.
The decision to remove Maradona from World Cup play was technically made by the Argentine soccer federation, which apparently spared itself any further sanctions with the action. FIFA, soccer's world governing body, said it would reserve a decision on any further punishment of Maradona until after the World Cup ends.
Argentine team officials said at the news conference that he would have no public comment. However, Maradona later spoke to Channel 13 of Buenos Aires, saying: "They have retired me from soccer. I don't think I want another revenge, my soul is broken."
His teammates were reported to be telling each other they must "win it for Diego," but they were defeated by the Bulgarians and dropped from first to third in their group.
Although ephedrine is an ingredient in some over-the-counter sinus medicines  and Maradona reportedly told his team's trainer he used it for minor allergy symptoms, a FIFA official said Maradona could not have taken one medicine.
"Maradona must have taken a cocktail of drugs because the five identified substances are not found in one medicine," said Michel d'Hooghe, a doctor and a  member of FIFA's executive committee.
FIFA listed the five banned substances in Maradona's test as ephedrine, phenylpropanolamine, pseudo-ephedrine, non-pseudo-ephedrine and methylephedrine. Neither FIFA nor the American organizing committee would say exactly how much of the substances had been detected.
But d'Hooghe said there was no single medical product available that would contain all five drug derivatives. And, he said, "Whatever way he there is of taking it, it is forbidden under the doping regulations of FIFA."
Ephedrine and its variants are commonly used by asthmatics and hay-fever sufferers to help clear the respiratory system, but taken in greater concentrations the drug can also be used as an adrenaline-like stimulant, to increase energy or to lose weight. Maradona had lost at least 26 pounds in preparation for World Cup play.
The tests were administered after the Argentina's 2-1 victory over Nigeria in Foxboro, Mass., last weekend, in which Maradona played the entire game. He and another Argentine player were randomly selected afterward for drug tests. Maradona's positive sample prompted FIFA to have his second sample analyzed at a U.C.L.A. laboratory in Los Angeles. It also came out positive.
Victory Over Nigeria Remains
FIFA said apparent use of the drug by one player was not enough to warrant a challenge to the game's outcome.
"If two players had been found guilty," said Joseph S. (Sepp) Blatter, FIFA's general secretary, "FIFA probably would have changed the result."
Although Argentina and Nigeria qualified for the second round of the tournament, a reversal of Saturday's result could have significantly altered their seeding and next-round opponents.
The suspension marked the third time a player has been thrown out of World Cup play for violating doping regulations. In 1974, Ernest Jean-Joseph of Haiti  was suspended for a sustance that was not publicly identified, and in 1978, Willie Johnston of Scotland was sent home for using another stimulant, fencamfamine.
Maradona's suspension stunned the soccer world and prompted havoc in Buenos Aires, where one television newscaster called the development "total madness, an absolute disaster."
Luis Vinker, a sports editor at Clarin, Argentina's largest circulation daily, said in a telephone interview that reaction in a poll his newspaper conducted today indicated people were more sad than angry. "People are in shock, they can't believed this has happened," he said, "but mostly they are sad."
A Renewed Status
For Maradona, this World Cup was supposed to offer a chance for redemption after years of controversy over drugs, run-ins with the police, even the weight  gain that undercut his superstar status.
Before leaving for the United States, he had told the Argentine news media: "I am tired of all those who said I was fat and no longer the great Maradona. They will see the real Diego at the World Cup."
Maradona was handed a worldwide suspension by FIFA from April 6, 1991, to June 30, 1992, after he tested positive for cocaine while playing for Napoli of  the Italian League.
He left Italy just after the test and has never returned, though he is now on trial there in absentia on drug charges. He had legal and financial problems in  Argentina as well, and also faces a lawsuit from a group of Argentine reporters  who said he injured four of them when he fired an air gun in a fit of rage as they gathered outside his home near Buenos Aires last February.
The FIFA president, Joao Havelange of Brazil, said at the news conference that he was distraught to relay the announcement.
"I love all these players as if they were my children or grandchildren," he said. "But, we cannot lie, and the medical facts don't lie, and we have to accept the truth."
WORLD CUP '94