Doping in association football

The use of performance-enhancing drugs in association football occurred over many decades since the 1940s at least. The high amount of money and media attention in this sport causes a lot of pressure, especially for the managers, which is the reason why there are also cases of unusual drug use like cocaine. A famous example is the case of Diego Maradona and his ban from 1990-91 Serie A by using cocaine during a match. Maradona was banned again three years later for using ephedrine during the 1994 FIFA World Cup.

Incidence of the use of performance-enhancing drugs ("doping") in football seems to be lower than in other sports. However, this could also be explained by the low amount of unannounced drug testing. There were also no further investigations or consequences in the Operación Puerto doping case or other revelations. So, much closer collaboration, improved testing and further investigation seems needed with regard to banned substances, detection methods, and data collection worldwide.

FIFA
In the run-up to the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the FIFA Congress ratified the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code, being the last of the Olympic sports to agree to "anti-doping". FIFA applies the minimum two-year ban for first-time offenders, although there are exceptions. When a player accused of doping can prove the substance was not intended to enhance performance, FIFA can reduce the sanction to a warning in a first offence, a two-year ban for a second offense and lifetime ban in case of repetition.

In 2014, the biological passport was introduced in the 2014 World Cup: blood and urine samples from all players before the competition and from two players per team and per match are analysed by the Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analyses.

UEFA
Since the introduction of confederation competitions in 1955–56 season, the UEFA's anti-doping controls were applied only in final matches if the European governing body considered it necessary. Since 1987–88 season, those controls became mandatory and systematics at all stages of the tournaments, and even executed without prior notice to representative teams at club and international level.

UEFA announced three doping cases for its competitions in the 2006–07 season, four less than in the previous season. The three failed tests compromised two cases of cannabis and one for a high concentration of Betamethasone in a UEFA Euro 2008 qualifier. In the 2006–07, UEFA carried out 1,662 tests in and out of competitions, including 938 players tested for the blood doping substance EPO.

World Cup 1954
A study titled "Doping in Germany from 1950 to today", published in August 2013, stated that some members of the Germany national team received injections during their successful world cup 1954. Erik Eggers, who wrote about the preanabolic period in the study, was sure that the injections didn't contain vitamin C ("They could have just eaten an orange") but assumed that they contained Pervitin: „If you take a look at newspaper reports back then and also the sports scientific environment plus the descriptions of team doctor Franz Loogen, you have to assume that amphetamines were administered.“ The study also stated that Pervitin (an upper, also used massively by soldiers in World War 2) was widespread in German football in the 1940s. The study, 800 pages in length and costing 450.000 Euro, was done by Berlin's Humboldt University and financed by the institute of sports science.

World Cup 1982 and 1986
Mohammed Kaci Saïd, Djamel Menad, Tedj Bensaoula, Medi Cerbah, Mohamed Chaib, Salah Larbès, Abdelkader Tlemçani, members of Algerias national side in the 1980s, claim that they were given performance-enhancing drugs. They suspect this to be the reason why they all fathered disabled children. Chaib, father of three disabled children, demanded the medical records and was told they didn't exist anymore. Rashid Hanafi, team doctor back then, also suspected there were suspicious practices going on. He told CNN that he was "not allowed to take a look at the medical records of the players any more when Rogov took over as coach in 1981". Alexander Tabartschuk, main doctor of the team, said he only handed vitamins. Algeria fell victim to the Disgrace of Gijón in 1982 and won the African Cup eight years later.

1987 Toni Schumacher recounted a huge amount of hormons, pills and injections (Liesen, head of the doctor team, injected 3000 himself) being used by national players during the World Cup 1986 in Mexico.

World Cup 1994 and 1998
Argentina took "speedy coffee" before the qualifier for the world cup 1994 against Australia, at least this is what Maradona said in May 2011. It should make them run faster, but also caused sleeping problems. He also found it suspicious that only the deciding match (against Australia) had no anti-doping control. Grondona, chairman of AFA back then, responded that there were no tests because Maradona, who already had a drug history, might not have passed. Maradona tested positive in the world cup. In the same year former athlete Edwin Klein published a book called "red card for the German Football Association". Here, several witnesses told about multiple doping offences in German football.

Right after the world cup 1998, all of the drug testing samples were destroyed. If the same would have happened in the Tour de France, Armstrong wouldn't have been caught, former WADA director Dr. Alain Garnier argued. Marie-Georges Buffet, sports minister at that time, also recalls that she felt pressurised when she initiated an unannounced test in December 1997. There were no more unannounced tests after that. Jean-Pierre Paclet, physician of Les Bleus in 1998, mentions "abnormal haematocrit values" in his book. Gary Neville, former English international, recalled that "some of the players started taking injections from (...) a Frenchman called Dr Rougier". After some felt an energy boost, there was "a queue to see the doctor before the Argentina match". At this time, many players worried about the increase of intensity and physical stress in football.

1920s
Arsenal had an FA cup encounter against West Ham United in 1925. Arsenal had finished the previous season at rank 19 and manager Leslie Knighton was pessimistic about their chances of winning. He got pills from a "distinguished West End doctor" and tested them by himself. After taking one, he "felt that he could push down a wall with his fists". He handed them to his team and they, according to his 1948 memoir, transformed into "lively young lions". . Unfortunately for them, the game was postponed due to fog and finally ended in a draw the next day.

1950s
In 1958, Gerardo Ottani made a survey. In this survey, 27 % of the professionals from the Italian leagues were consuming amphetamines. 68 % were using anabolic steroids and 62 % were taking stimulants that effected respiration and cardiac output. Ottani was employed at Bologna and switched to a medical profession after his career.

Italy
In the 1960s, Inter Milan has its greatest period of success known as [La] Grande Inter ("Great Inter"), achieved when Helenio Herrera was their manager. He won seven trophies with the club. In 2004, Ferruccio Mazzola, Inter player during that period, accused him of distributing performance-enhancing drugs, including amphetamines, among the team players, especially the substitute players "who often served as guinea pigs for trying new pills and see if they worked." When he found out that some in the team were spitting them out, he dissolved them in coffee to make sure they were consumed, a practice known as Caffè di Herrera ("Herrera's Coffee"). In 2010, Inter sued Mazzola but lost the case, the court believed him. One of the reasons he spoke up were the serious medical conditions and/or deaths of some of his former members: Giuliano Taccola, then team's captain Armando Picchi (died aged 36 due to cancer), Marcello Giusti, Carlo Tagnin, Mauro Bicicli, Ferdinando Miniussi, Enea Masiero and Pino Longoni. He suspected the drugs to be the cause of their sufferings. in 2015, his brother Sandro, who denied everything at the beginning, admitted that the incidents happened.

England
Everton, one of the top clubs in the English football league, were champions of the 1962–63 season, and it was done, according to a national newspaper investigation, with the help of Benzedrine. Word spread after Everton's win that the drug had been involved. The newspaper investigated, cited where the reporter believed it had come from, and quoted the goalkeeper, Albert Dunlop, as saying:


 * I cannot remember how they first came to be offered to us. But they were distributed in the dressing rooms. We didn't have to take them but most of the players did. The tablets were mostly white but once or twice they were yellow. They were used through the 1961–62 season and the championship season which followed it. Drug-taking had previously been virtually unnamed in the club. But once it had started we could have as many tablets as we liked. On match days they were handed out to most players as a matter of course. Soon some of the players could not do without the drugs.

The club agreed that drugs had been used but that they "could not possibly have had any harmful effect." Dunlop, however, said he had become an addict.

Netherlands
Performance-enhancing drugs were used on a regular basis according to witnesses of that period, mostly in Ajax, Feyenoord and AZ Alkmaar during competitive matches, including the 1970 and 1972 Intercontinental Cups won by the first two cited clubs. Jan Peters recounted drug use before the big games. They seemed to work as he felt energy boosts and euphoria. Johnny Rep, former Ajax player, claimed that "everyone was on something". He recounted injections for everyone on 1 November 1979, ahead of a match of his team, Saint-Etienne, against PSV Eindhoven. Pierre Poty, who was physician of the club at that time, also revealed that he worked with uppers and reasoned it with the fantastic effects. Fritz Kessel, also physician, worked for the Dutch national side for 30 years and revealed that drugs were common in the 1974 and 1978 FIFA World Cups. He said that to Guido Derksen, writer of Voetbal Myseries, who wrote that players "consumed tons of amphetamines."

West Germany
An investigative commission of sports medicine in Freiburg claims that in the late 1970s and in the 1980s Stuttgart and Freiburg football clubs were operating with Anabolika. VfB Stuttgart reordered Anabolika at least once.

East Germany
Falko Götz, a former BFC Dynamo player and later coach in the Bundesliga for Hertha BSC and 1. FC Nürnberg, denied any active knowledge, but admitted to having been administered substances declared to be vitamins in his active time with the club. Gerd Weber, a former SG Dynamo Dresden player, is one of the few former East German football players to have openly confirmed that doping occurred in East German football. Weber has stated that East German footballers were regularly administered white pills before international matches. SG Dynamo Dresden players were allegedly administered the psycho-stimulant Oxytocin before the team's European Cup match against Partizan Belgrade in September 1978.

East Germany
Unlike other sports in the former East Germany, football did not have a government-run doping program due to the fact that football was not seen as internationally successful enough to justify the expense. Doping was carried out sporadically in football and from 1985, doping tests were carried out to prevent this practice.

The head of the East German sports medicine department Manfred Höppner accused BFC Dynamo and 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig of doping. According to his statement, when the two teams traveled abroad for their European Cup and UEFA Cup matches in October 1983, a test revealed high traces of Amphetamine and Methamphetamine in 13 of 19 BFC Dynamo players, allegedly administered only two-to-three days before. In 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig players, only slight traces were found and only on some players. It would also be known that the Anabolic steroid Depot-Turinabol had been administered for several years at 1. FC Union Berlin. Two 1. FC Union Berlin players tesed positive for Depot-Turanabol in April 1985.

West Germany
In 1987, Toni Schumacher wrote about a long-running tradition of doping in the Bundesliga, claiming that lots of players were taking Captagon. He himself experimented with it and the effects were: Increased aggression, lower pain threshold, increased focus, confidence and endurance. The by effect was sleeping problems. In Köln he was chauffeuring his colleagues to the doctor who gave them pills and injections, presumably anabolics and stimulants. In the national team he mentioned a "walking chemist" and hormone use. Despite being supported by Paul Breitner he had to leave Köln after 544 games. Later on, his statements about doping in the Bundesliga were supported by Per Roentved, Hans Werner Moors, Dieter Schatzscheider, Hans-Josef Kapellmann, Peter Neururer, Benno Möhlmann, Uwe Nester, Peter Geyer (who talked about procedure, quantity and side effects), Jürgen Röber, Jürgen Stumm and Peter Harms (both medics).

Italy
Juventus won the 1996 UEFA Champions League Final, but the victory remains controversial because of accusations of doping. In November 2004, club doctor Riccardo Agricola was given a 22-month prison sentence and fined €2,000 for sporting fraud by providing performance-enhancing drugs, specifically EPO, to players between 1994 and 1998. Leading hematologist Giuseppe d'Onofrio said that it was "practically certain" that midfielders Antonio Conte and Alessio Tacchinardi had taken EPO to overcome brief bouts of anemia, and that it was "very probable" that seven other players – Alessandro Birindelli, Alessandro Del Piero, Didier Deschamps, Dimas, Paolo Montero, Gianluca Pessotto and Moreno Torricelli – had taken EPO in small doses. In 2005, Juventus team doctor Riccardo Agricola and managing director Antonio Giraudo have both been cleared of sporting fraud by Turin's court of appeal and thus officially overturned all previous convictions. The court overturned Agricola's previous conviction for administering banned substances to players between 1994 and 1998, including the hormone EPO, which stimulates the body's production of red blood cells. He was given a 22-month suspended prison sentence in November 2004 which was totally overturned by the appeal court ruling.

France
At Olympique Marseille, doping also took place according to Marcel Desailly, Jean-Jaques Eydelie, Chris Waddle and Tony Cascarino. They told about stimulants taken prior to their big games, which made them more energetic and keen. According to Eydelie, "all (of them) took a series of injections" in the Champions League Final 1993, except Rudi Völler. All this was no surprise for Arsene Wenger, who said everyone in France assumed something like that going on. Additionally, Desailly and Cascarino claimed that Bernard Tapie, the president himself, distributed pills and injections. Author Mondenard also mentioned "injections for everyone". Tapie only admitted that some players took Captagon.

Italy
There were a couple of athletes caught in the Top Italian football league having too high Nandrolon values. Among them were Pep Guardiola, Edgar Davids, Frank de Boer and Jaap Stam.

Former Parma midfielder Matias Almeyda made revelations about allegedly vitamins that they were given at Parma: "They said it was a mixture of vitamins, but before entering the field I was able to jump up as high as the ceiling."

Spain
French newspaper Le Monde alleges that in the course of investigating Operation Puerto, a doping bust primarily focused on cycling, extensive documentation was found of "seasonal preparation plans" for Real Madrid and Barcelona that include notation suggesting doping practices. Sources suggest that of the 200 sportspersons implicated in Operation Puerto, approximately 50 were cyclists (including notable names such as Ivan Basso and Tyler Hamilton) and the remaining 150 were from other sporting codes, including football. The football players were never pursued in the investigation, leading to claims of double standards between sports.  2013 it had been announced that Fuentes received up to €327,000 annually from Real Sociedad. This was detected by auditors from Ernst & Young at the behest of Iñaki Badiola, president of the club in 2008. The documentation of the doctor also contained the inscriptions "RSOC" a couple of times and "Cuentas [bills] Asti" which most probably stands for Astiazarán, president of the club from 2000 to 2005. In 2003 Real Sociedad finished second in the Spanish League, missing the title by two points.

Luis Garcia del Moral was official team doctor of US Postal from 1999 to 2003. He, Pepe Marti and Michelle Ferrari were accused of possessing and distributing performance enhancing drugs. In the homepage of Performa SportConsulting, del Moral was also listed as advisor of the Valencia and Barcelona football clubs.

Germany
In 2008, Tim Meyer examined the blood of over 500 footballers from the Bundesliga. The investigation was voluntary and anonymous. Every test person was free to withdraw from the study whenever he wanted. Finally, 467 players participated to the end. Six samples from the start of the season and two later samples showed haematocrit values of over 50 % (limit at the International Cycling Federation). Nine samples showed a haemoglobin value of over 17 grams per deciliter (limit at the International Ski Federation).

2010s
At least 10 percent of football professionals from Sweden, Germany, and Spain used performance enhancing drugs in the year 2014. 93 % were controlled once or never in that year. This is according to an analysis of strictly anonymous questionaries completed by 124 athletes. For this study, the Randomized Response Technique was used.

2020s
Alejandro Dario Gómez tested positive for Terbutalin in 2023. Some months later, Paul Pogbas test showed an increased testosterone value. The World Champions were employed at Monza and Juventus.

Albania
Besa defender Alban Dragusha was suspended for 24 months by UEFA after failing a test on 19 July 2007 for a high concentration of nandrolone metabolites after a UEFA Cup match in Belgrade.

Argentina
Arguably the most high-profile case of doping in world football is the one of Diego Maradona at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States, who was immediately suspended and later sanctioned for 18 months for intake of ephedrine. Maradona was also suspended for 15 months in 1991 after a failed doping test for cocaine while playing for Napoli in Italy.

Australia
In January 2007, Stan Lazaridis, playing for Perth Glory, failed a drug test for prescription alopecia medication, which is banned due to its potential as a masking agent for other performance-enhancing substances. He was found guilty by Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority and was given a 12-month suspension from football. He had not taken the prohibited substance to mask a performance-enhancing drug but for legitimate therapeutic purposes as prescribed by his doctor. However, the tribunal held that an anti-doping violation had occurred and ordered the player ineligible to play for 12 months, backdated to the date of his failed test.

Testing Programmes in England
So far, only one Premier League player has ever failed a test for using performance-enhancing drugs in a league match. According to a statement of one of UK Sport's Independent Sampling Officers (ISO), "If a club knows in advance we're coming, and the club suspects one of their players, they keep him off training and his name doesn't appear on the list I am given." In the 1999–2000 season, testers were present at just 32 of the over 3,500 league matches, taking samples from two players of each side. Compared to other sports in the UK, like cricket, cycling or athletics, footballers are far less likely to be tested. A case of high-profile was the one of Rio Ferdinand, who missed a drug test in September 2003 and found himself punished for it, being banned for eight months.

In July 2009, the FA was in talks with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) over the FA's proposal to comply with the WADA international anti-doping code (as other UK sports such as rugby, golf and tennis have already done). The FA was at the time under pressure from organisations including UK sport and Sport England to comply with the code and to put forward the first 30 players of the England national team for testing.

A dispute deals with the rules surrounding footballers in the testing pool: Should footballers have drug testing on randomly selected days (so athletes must state their whereabouts for an hour every day) as in other WADA-compliant sports, or should testing merely take place each week at club training?

Cases in England
In the 2002–03 season, Rushden & Diamonds goalkeeper Billy Turley was let off with a mere warning after being found to have taken the anabolic steroid nandrolone. He was later banned for six months for failing a test for cocaine, which is deemed to be a recreational drug, becoming the only player so far to be banned after a domestic league match.

Middlesbrough's Abel Xavier was banned in November 2005 from football for 18 months by UEFA for taking anabolic steroids after failing a test for dianabol after a UEFA Cup match on 29 September 2005. He is the first player in Premier League history to be banned for using performance-enhancing substances, as opposed to recreational drugs.

Adrian Mutu of Chelsea was banned after he failed a test for cocaine in the 2003–04 season. He was banned for seven months and was subsequently released by Chelsea.

In 2016, after a UEFA Europa League match, Liverpool's Mamadou Sakho was alleged to have taken a fat-burning banned drug. However, on later investigation, UEFA opted to dismiss all charges.

France
Jean-Jacques Eydelie, who played for Marseille in the 1–0 final victory over Milan in Munich in the 1993 UEFA Champions League Final, said in L'Equipe magazine in January 2006, that he and several teammates received injections before the match, implying premeditated doping. Former Marseille club president Bernard Tapie has taken legal action over articles suggesting players were given doping substances.

Germany
Peter Neururer, a coach in the German Bundesliga, accused players of his former club Schalke 04 of doping, alleging that almost all players in the club in the late 1980s took Captagon, an illegal substance in most countries, including Germany. Jens Lehmann, then a young player with the club, confirmed the allegations. The German Football Association requested Neururer to release names of players involved in doping. Schalke 04 denied the allegations. Two former team doctors of Eintracht Braunschweig confessed administering Captagon to players of the club in the 1970s and '80s.

Germany national team head coach Joachim Löw insisted he has never seen an example of drug-abuse in German football.

Doping tests have been carried out in the Bundesliga since 1988, and after selected matches, two players are chosen at random to provide a urine sample. In the 2006–07 season, tests were carried out after 241 of 612 first and second division matches. Since 1995, 15 players from the Bundesliga's first and second divisions have been accused of doping offences.

Italy
In Serie A, Parma's Manuele Blasi was banned after a failed test for nandrolone in September 2003.

According to the Gazzetta dello Sport, the death of four former Fiorentina players over the past 19 years were suspicious. Pino Longoni died at age 63 after suffering from an irreversible degenerative illness which narrowed the arteries in his brain; Bruno Beatrice died of leukaemia in 1987 aged 39; Nello Saltutti died after suffering a heart attack in 2003 aged 56; and Ugo Ferrante died in November 2004 of cancer of the tonsils aged 59. The Italian newspaper claimed their illnesses may have been brought on by Cortex and Micoren, drugs that were allegedly administered by Fiorentina's medical staff in the 1970s. However, Turin prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello, who has led Italy's fight against drug-taking in sport since 1998, said without hard evidence the Gazzetta's claims that the deaths might be linked to doping were presumptuous.