By Andrew Warshaw
July 4 – UEFA have given more details of their plans to introduce blood tests for players in their two main club competitions, first announced in May. Until now UEFA has only conducted blood tests at international tournaments – Euro 2008 and 2012 – but from this month the detection regime is to be extended to the Champions League and Europa League. Checks will be made during and out of competition and players may be asked at routine doping controls to give urine samples, blood samples or both.
However, UEFA said on its website that out-of-competition checks would only be carried out if players or teams had not informed testers where they would be when required to be tested.
“We cannot say that football is free of doping,” said the chairman of UEFA’s anti-doping panel, Dr Jacques Lienard. “It is important UEFA remains vigilant in its fight against doping and all products that are associated with doping.”
Players preparing for the European Women’s Under-17 Championship were last week given a stark warning against drug-taking. UEFA anti-doping assistant Richard Grisdale was quoted as saying: “If you make a mistake or don’t know the rules and you test positive, you will be banned. You will suffer. Your team can suffer.
“You are responsible for everything in your body. If you test positive, you cannot blame somebody else. Take responsibility for the medicines you take, any supplements, what you eat, what you drink.”
In London last May following a meeting of UEFA’s executive committee, UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino said “a few hundred” blood tests would be enforced next season throughout all UEFA competitions while steroid biological passports, widely accepted in track and field, “will be considered for future implementation”.
“What specifically prompted blood tests is that we really wanted to do whatever we can to show that we want to have a clean sport,” Infantino said. “We have not made a lot of noise about this but …we thought it’s the right time to introduce this for all our competitions. Do we have concerns? No, but you can always do things more efficiently. You can never take the guard down.”
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