Every player at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil will be required to have a biological passport, FIFA, the sport’s governing body, announced today.
Every player at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil will be required to have a biological passport, FIFA, the sport’s governing body, announced today.
Biological profiling is considered to be one of the most effective methods of detecting the use of performance-enhancing drugs and blood boosters like EPO.
FIFA wants to introduce biological profiling starting this year with the Confederations Cup in Brazil, in which Nigeria will be participating. The plan is expected to be fully operational by next year’s World Cup in Brazil.
A delegation from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had a meeting with FIFA officials at their Zurich headquarters yesterday, and WADA president, John Fahey, expressed satisfaction with FIFA’s commitment to biological profile”.
FIFA medical officer Michel D’Hooghe said: “FIFA was the first international organization for team sport to start with longitudinal profiles.”
He explained that FIFA is developing plans to introduce profiling, including a steroid profile through urine and a blood profile, for the Confederations Cup, where in- and out-of-competition tests would be conducted on all participating players, as well as unannounced blood testing at training camps and games.
EPO was first tested for by FIFA at the 2002 World Cup where all players had to underego urine and blood testing and whenever the results were abnormal, an EPO test was performed. All results were negative.
FIFA is also developing the hormonal profiling project, a new initiative, in collaboration with the WADA-accredited laboratory in Switzerland.
“There is always more which can be done in the fight against doping, but we know FIFA has always been serious in this domain,” Fahey said.
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