FIFA considers biological passports
Reuters - Thursday 29 October 2009, 14:05
ZURICH - Football's governing body FIFA will
work with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to step up the
pressure on drug cheats in the sport, possibly with
cycling-style biological passports.
"This is a strategy which could be extremely beneficial in
the next few years," WADA president John Fahey told reporters
after meeting his opposite number Sepp Blatter at FIFA
headquarters on Thursday.
"We welcome this partnership and we are happy that such an
important sport is prepared to work with us," he added, although
he warned it could take time to implement.
"It will not necessarily bring results straight away."
Since January 2008, the International Cycling Union (UCI)
has collected blood samples from all professional riders to
create a medical profile that would be compared with data
registered in anti-doping tests.
"This is a long-term project and it's worthwhile exploring,"
said FIFA chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak, adding that FIFA
carried out 33,000 doping tests each year.
"Of these, 0.3 percent test positive and these are mostly
with social drugs such as marijuana and cocaine," said Dvorak.
He said 0.03 percent of the 33,000 tested positive for positive
for performance-enhancing drugs.
FIFA and WADA were until recently involved in a series of
disputes, mainly over the controversial whereabouts rule which
requires athletes to give three months' notice of where they
will be for an hour each day.
However, the two sides have patched up their differences and
Fahey said FIFA was now up to scratch with WADA regulations.
"FIFA has a robust and extensive anti-doping programme and
... is fully compliant with the World Anti-Doping committee," he
said. "The FIFA programme is a very good programme."
FIFA president Blatter said the sport was doing all it
could.
"I was too candid when I said there are no drugs in
football," he said. "33,000 (tests) is the optimum. We can't do
more than that."