Tuesday, 2nd July, 2013
As the 2013/14 Champions League qualifying gets under way today, UEFA are racing ahead to include the testing of blood samples from players as part of its anti-doping drive.
Until last season’s editions of the Champions League and the Europa League, UEFA were restricting themselves to only analysing urine samples from players, but new regulations have already been brought into law.
Blood samples have been used to test players at Euro 2008 and Euro 2012, and the practice will now be extended towards all UEFA competitions from 2013 onwards.
UEFA’s confidence has been recently boosted by their own report on the testing from last season, which revealed that out of 1,374 tests carried out in the Champions League and Europa League in 2012/13, not a single player had tested positive.
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With Armenian side Shirak pulling off a 3-0 win over Sammarinese outfit SP Tre Penne in their Champions League first qualifying round, it begins a run of 213 games in this season’s edition.
It remains to be seen how effective UEFA’s anti-doping testing will be when the tournament ends in Lisbon next year, especially with the Women’s game also set for its own European Championship in Sweden this summer.
In addition, and as revealed in UEFA’s executive committee meetings earlier this summer, the governing body is set to begin profiling players who have been previously tested to aid further efforts against doping.
A statement on UEFA’s site read: "In collaboration with the WADA-accredited laboratory in Lausanne, UEFA is launching a study to analyse the steroid profiles of almost 900 players who have been tested at least three times in UEFA competitions since 2008.
"The aim of this study will be to identify the potential prevalence of steroid use across European football by using data from previous doping controls.
"The study will be anonymous and its findings will not result in any player incurring an anti-doping rule violation."
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