A LEN disciplinary hearing is to be held at 21:30hrs here at the European Championships in Eindhoven. The man called to account for his actions is Milorad Cavic of Serbia, 50m butterfly champion in a European record of 23.11. His 'crime': to wear a t-shirt declaring that 'Kosovo is Serbia' (in his own language) when on the podium collecting his gold.

A letter of protest was received from an unnamed party. It may have come from a country involved in the dispute, or maybe it came from a bureaucrat who dislikes any hint of politics in the pool. The swimmer's action and the protest it provoked are as understandable as each other. Passions run deep on the issue in the Balkans.

Cavic's case will now go before the LEN Panel for Disciplinary Matters and Disputes. For LEN, there should be only one conclusion: let the punishment fit the crime. It would suffice to ask Cavic - coached by Mike Bottom (former 4x100m free world record holder for the USA), and born in Anaheim, California - not to make political protests on the podium and in the pool. Outside of the pool, the swimmer, who is based for much of his time in Islamorada, Florida, can do as he pleases. End of story. Anything further than that would be taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

LEN will doubtless wish to steer clear of changing Cavic's race result and record.

After all, 97 out of 108 gold medals at European Championships went to East German women between 1973 and 1989 on a diet of Oral Turinabol, some received criminal convictions for the sporting Crime of the Century, and no sporting body ever revisited a single GDR result, regardless of the overwhelming evidence that proved that European swimming history (not to mention that of the world) was skewed by a state-run steroids programme that made victims of generations of athletes.

The issue raises another one: are official bodies to be involved in the banning of political t-shirts? I only ask because I can see a few mentions of Tibet and China cropping up on the horizon....