American Football: Chambers' Career Change Put on Hold By Broken Foot

Attempts by the disgraced former sprinter Dwain Chambers to forge a new career in American football have received a severe setback after he suffered a foot injury that will force him out of the rest of the NFL Europe season.

His coach at Hamburg Sea Devils, Vince Martino, said yesterday that he doubted whether the 29-year-old former European 100m champion, who was banned for two years from athletics in 2003 after testing positive for the drug THG, had the potential to achieve real success in the sport.

Chambers broke a bone in his foot in a training session, raising a serious question mark over his future in the game, but he will not need surgery. He said: "I don't have any idea when and how it happened, but I've never felt so much pain."

The injury comes just days after Victor Conte, the founder of the Balco laboratory in California who spent four months in jail for supplying banned drugs to athletes, said in a Guardian interview that his new company was providing Chambers with legal nutritional supplements, a claim denied by a Sea Devils spokesman.

Chambers last week revived the debate over drugs in athletics with a claim that only athletes who use drugs can win Olympic titles and that scientists are always one step ahead of the testers.

Yesterday Lord Coe, chairman of London 2012, told the BBC's Inside Sport that Chambers should not be given the option of returning to athletics.

"I've been saying for the last 25 or 30 years that if you systematically set out to cheat, then frankly you don't have a place in legitimate sport. He's probably in the right sport now, to be honest," said Coe. "We have got throughout our history athletes who have got to the very highest level who have not [taken drugs]."

Martino said Chambers, who plays as wide receiver, would miss the remaining two matches of the season. "Dwain suffered a stress fracture in his right foot. He will not require surgery, but will require rest to let it heal and is out for the season. Unfortunately it came at the end of his best week of practice so far.

"He was more comfortable catching the ball and we were looking forward to him playing more in the remaining weeks. We were making special plays for him just to use his speed and his progress has been fantastic."

NFL Europe said Chambers would be subjected to extra drugs testing because of his background, but Martino said: "He is drug tested on a random basis like all of the other players so, if he was on anything, then they would catch him. I think he's clean."

Chambers returned to athletics last year, running in Britain's victorious 4x100m team at the European championship in Gothenburg, and finishing fifth in the individual event. But he turned to American football for financial reasons - he faces paying back £180,000 in winnings to continue his athletics career.

He had an unsuccessful tryout with San Francisco 49ers, but Martino hopes he will continue to play with Hamburg in NFL Europe next season. "I hope he's back next year. He lost a lot of progress this year, but if he was able to stay with us for an entire year, then you would really see a jump in improvement."

The coach is less optimistic about his long-term prospects in American football. "I don't think he has the potential to go all the way in the NFL. He doesn't catch the ball well enough as a receiver. He has straight-ahead speed, but has a tremendous disadvantage when it comes to catching the ball."