Pretoria - World football body FIFA has warned against doping at this year's World Cup in South Africa.
At a media briefing on Saturday, FIFA's chief medical officer Prof. Jiri Dvorak said the organisation has stepped up its out-of-competition and in-competition testing programme which has been designed based on statistics and risk assessment of doping in football.
"In football, the incidence of positive doping cases is comparably low (0.05 percent) to other elite sports. Nevertheless, FIFA continues its stringent fight against doping," Dvorak said. To re-emphasise this, a joint campaign with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) "Say no to doping" has been launched for this year's world cup.
Dvorak emphasised on the protection of player's health via pre-competition medical assessments, as well as the recording of injury and illness.
Several top players are ambassadors for the "Say no to doping" campaign which was introduced by FIFA's medical leadership, together with WADA.
During the World Cup two players per team per match will be randomly tested for doping control.
Between 1994 and 2009 FIFA carried out 6964 in 57 final rounds of its competitions including Olympic Football Tournament. During this period, four positives samples were discovered, one for ephedrine, one for cannabis and two for nandrolone. The last positive result was recorded at a FIFA World Cup was in 1994.
