Wada Lauds World Cup Anti-doping Programme
FIFA has completed the first phase of a groundbreaking World Cup drug testing programme with no positive cases reported. The programme has prompted World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to urge other sporting bodies to follow world football’s governing body lead.
The FIFA initiative saw 800 players give blood and urine samples and were tested prior to the start of this year’s competition.
According to David Howman, WADA’s director general, the programme is the first time in major sport competition history that participating athletes were systematically tested prior to the competition ‘for the establishment of individual biological profiles including both blood and urine parameters’.
Howman told insidethegames: ‘We encourage other sports to follow suit in adopting the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) as an effective means to protecting the rights of the clean athlete.’
The ABP is a method of monitoring athletes’ biological profiles over a period of time, in order to identify surprise changes that might be the result of doping.
FIFA said that remaining players ‘can and will be tested’ at any time during the tournament, while two players from each team would be tested for blood and urine at each match as part of routine in-competition doping controls.
Samples collected from players taking part at the World Cup in Brazil are being analysed at a laboratory in the Olympic capital, Lausanne, after WADA removed the accreditation of the original Ladetec laboratory in Rio de Janeiro last year.
