22.02.2010
World Cup anti-doping tests to start in April: FIFA
View of an anti-doping laboratory in Vancouver, Canada.
Anti-doping tests on players competing in the World Cup will start in April, two months ahead of the June 11 kick-off in South Africa, FIFA's chief medical officer said on Monday.
Teams are required to submit their whereabouts to the world football body by March 22 with testing in training camps running from April 10 to June 10.
"Two months prior the World Cup, we will be visiting the teams unannounced," said FIFA chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak, saying that eight players in a squad will be randomly selected for blood and urine testing.
"During the World Cup itself, two players per team will be tested, randomly selected from each team, and they will be escorted immediately after the match for the doping controls."
Speaking after a football medicine conference, Dvorak told a media briefing that 320 tests will be done before the tournament and at least 256 more after kick-off.
"We have a very strict strategy in the fight against doping, in and out of competition, absolutely in compliance with the world anti-doping code and we will not deviate from this strategy," he said.
Speaking on Sunday at the conference, Dvorak called for considering alternative anti-doping strategies.
Individual testing of players costs the football world some 30 million US dollars annually with just 0.3 percent of around 33,000 samples testing positive and 0.03 percent for performance enhancers, he said.
"We think that the individual in-competition and out-of-competition testing in football is really inefficient and ineffective. Random team testing of elite teams at any time offers a more deterring effect," said Dvorak.
Dvorak put forward alternatives of blood and urine tests four times a year and identifying players' hormone and steroid profiles.
Source: © 2010 AFP - Alex Livesey
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