adminand other blood-boosting drugs.
“Football is not testing frequently enough for EPO; they can do more and we are encouraging them to do more,” said John Fahey, the president of Wada.
EPO, which increases red blood cell counts to boost endurance artificially, was one of the cocktail of drugs used in professional cycling from the early 90s and is at the centre of the on-going Operación Puerto trial in Spain.
In the wake of the fall-out from the investigation that led to Lance Armstrong being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life, the spotlight has fallen on other sports including football and tennis.
David Howman, the director general of Wada, said that after years of trying it was now making significant progress with professional team sports in the US and called on football to follow the example of Major League Baseball.
“We had a meeting last week with Major League Baseball. They now do more testing and are doing more analysis of more substances than many international sports federations. Each baseball player on the roster of a major league team will be tested four times a year,” said Howman.
“I know I’m talking quantity, rather than quality, but if you transfer that approach to the Premier League and ask whether every player in the English Premier League had been tested four times in a year I think we all know what the answer is. Team sports players can go their entire career without being tested once. That’s an initiative by MLB that ought to be taken up by others.”
In Spain, where Dr Eufemiano Fuentes is on trial for endangering the health of the athletes involved in a wide-ranging doping ring, Operación Puerto has implicated athletes from sports other than cycling.
On the opening day of the trial, Fuentes said he treated “footballers, tennis players, athletes and a boxer” but the judge has not compelled him to name names despite repeated entreaties from Wada’s lawyer.
Howman said it had spent “many euros” getting the trial to this point and again called for the identities of the athletes linked to the “200 plus” blood bags seized from Fuentes to be made public.
Several high-profile tennis players have publicly questioned the frequency with which they are tested and the Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger, called for more blood testing in football last weekend.
“I would support it. Uefa [is] ready to do it, but it poses some ethical problems because everyone has to accept that [it] will check the blood and not everybody is ready to do that,” he said.
Fahey questioned why football was not doing more to test for EPO. “Football is not testing enough for EPO, it can do more and we are encouraging them to do more. And use intelligence, not just more tests,” he said.
“I would argue we now know that the athlete’s biological passport is a very effective tool. Why isn’t football using it?” – The Guardian.
Online Reporter