Doping not 'significant problem' in football, says FIFA's medical chief

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The chief medical officer (CMO) of world football governing body FIFA has insisted that doping is not a significant problem in the game, unlike other sports.

According to Sport24, football has largely avoided any negative publicity regarding illicit drug-taking while athletics has suffered some high-profile positive tests over the last two months and cycling began the year with Lance Armstrong owning up to his doping past.

Despite the positive doping test of Argentine legend Diego Maradona during the 1994 World Cup and several Italy-based players being banned for doping in the early 2000s, the report said that football's record on drugs is relatively good compared to other sports.

According to FIFA's medical chief Jiri Dvorak, this is because there is not much doping happening in football, adding that he is confident that there is no systematic doping in the game as of now although he admitted that there might be some individual cases.

Dvorak also said that under his supervision, medical officers conduct more than 30, 000 sampling procedures every year, in which they get between 70 to 90 positive cases, mostly for marijuana and cocaine and some for anabolic steroids.

Dvorak further said that FIFA would try to get other football organisations to start biological profiling in football, similar to the biological passport in cycling, adding that the board is in discussions with UEFA and other confederations to start this procedure to register all top players.

Dvorak also said that the board would even go into the more intelligent and targeted testing if they have any suspicion.

FIFA launched biological profiling back in February, which was tested at June's Confederations Cup and will be tested again at next year's World Cup, the report added.