By David Owen
November 20 – FIFA is to trial the ADAMS database management system during the Club World Cup in Japan in December, in a move likely to be welcomed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as it battles through a challenging period.
ADAMS is the main book-keeping/information-sharing tool of the doping control movement, a secure web-based clearing house where data on testing results, therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) and anti-doping rule violations is collected and stored. But it is dependent on meticulous record-keeping and universal coverage if it is ever to aspire to providing a comprehensive picture.
A specific finding in the recent Pound report into allegations of widespread doping in Russia was that WADA’s coordination of the fight against doping in sport could be “made easier if the use of ADAMS was compulsory”. According to the report, “much, but not all, of the information necessary for complete compliance has been entered in ADAMS and WADA has encouraged, but has not forced, all signatories and those required to provide whereabouts information to use the system”.
So, the system’s adoption by the wealthiest and most powerful International Sports Federation (IF) is a distinct step forward.
The move by FIFA has been anticipated for some time. Last year, at a WADA Foundation Board meeting in Paris, Jiri Dvorak, FIFA’s chief medical officer, divulged that FIFA had “come to the conclusion that ADAMS was the way forward”. At that time, he said FIFA was “trying to clarify all the legal issues”, but this week he told me “all hurdles have been solved”.
The move is seen as particularly timely due to FIFA’s adoption of the Athlete Biological Passport, commencing in the run-up to the 2014 World Cup.
Dvorak reported to WADA that, up to last November, “all blood and steroid profiles had been normal”, and that all players “without exception”, including big names such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Lionel Messi, had been supportive.
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