FIFA to pilot anti-doping programme

FIFA announced on Thursday that they will conduct a pilot study ahead of next month's Club World Cup in Japan which will see all participating clubs taking part in random doping controls. Players from Barcelona, Santos and the five other clubs competing in the tournament -- which runs from December 8-18 -- will be subjected to the tests with the aim being, according to FIFA, "to capture players' individual steroid profile." World football's governing body added that "every club will be required to provide FIFA with accurate details of their team activities (matches, training schedule, etc) during the period from 14 November to 8 December 2011. "FIFA will test all of the players from all clubs in order to be able to compare those steroid profiles with the samples that will be taken at the Club World Cup 2011." In contrast to a traditional doping test, which seeks to detect the presence of banned substances in athletes' blood or urine, FIFA's biological passport will seek to catch cheats by exposing the effects of doping on the athlete's body. Endurance sports such as cycling have already adopted the biological passport as a more efficient way of detecting use of the blood booster EPO (erythropoietin) or blood transfusions.