Every player at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil will be required to have a biological passport, the sport’s world governing body FIFA announced on Friday.
FIFA intend to introduce the system of biological profiling at this year’s Confederations Cup in Brazil, as part of the worldwide crackdown on doping in sport and it should be fully operational by the next World Cup.
A delegation from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) met FIFA officials at their Zurich headquarters on Thursday, and WADA president John Fahey said his agency was “very satisfied with the commitment of FIFA on the biological profiles”.
FIFA medical officer Michel D’Hooghe said: “FIFA was the first international organisation 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.
“And it’s our commitment to have all players participating at the 2014 FIFA World Cup having biological profiles,” he added
Biological profiling is considered one of the most effective methods of detecting the use of performance-enhancing drugs and blood boosters like EPO.
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. [AFP]
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