The facility in Rio, headed by Professor Francisco, is Brazil's only WADA-accredited laboratory and therefore expected to play a major role in testing samples from athletes at both the FIFA 2014 World Cup and also the Rio 2016 Olympics and Paralympics.

However, the future of the laboratory has now been thrown into question after Solberg gave WADA an out-of-competition sample in May this year that the researchers at the facility in Rio said contained testosterone.

The International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) provisionally suspended Solberg but lifted the sanction against the 25-year-old from Rio just one month later when the Brazilian laboratory delayed analysing the B-sample.

FIVB's experts questioned the Brazilian paperwork when the B-test confirmed the presence of banned drugs and ordered retests from the leading WADA laboratory in Cologne in Germany, which showed that the sample was in fact clean with no traces of testosterone.


"In this important battle against doping, we cannot afford to be losing confidence in the analytical results of WADA-accredited laboratories," said FIVB President Jizhong Wei (pictured) said in a statement.

"As much as we need to identify and sanction those who cheat, we must ensure that no athlete is faced with a false positive."

FIVB have asked WADA to investigate why the Cologne laboratory findings contradicted those of the laboratory in Rio to ensure that such an error does not occur again.

"We trust that WADA will carefully look into this regrettable incident and will succeed in further harmonising the analytical procedures used by the laboratories," said Roald Bahr, President of the FIVB Medical Commission.

WADA has a total of 36 accredited laboratories spread across the world, but three of the facilities have been sanctioned since June 2010.

The accredited laboratory in Ankara, Turkey, had its license revoked earlier this year after falsely accusing basketball player Diana Taurasi of doping with a stimulant, while WADA accredited laboratories in Malaysia and Tunisia were suspended for unspecified failings.

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