A fundamental tenet of testing for performance-enhancing drugs in sports is that an athlete can expect to be tested at any time, at any place, without warning. To enable this, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has the ‘whereabouts rule’. This rule states that those athletes on its target list, which in swimming’s case means the Top 50 in the world in each event, must keep WADA informed of where they’ll be for at least one hour each day. In practice, this means that the athlete will enter this data three months in advance, and then can change details via SMS, fax etc. according to circumstances. If a tester shows up to where the athlete has said they’ll be, and they’re nor there, it counts as a missed test. Three missed tests and you’re banned.

Now FIFA signed up to WADA’s anti-doping code ages ago, but they’re now complaining that the whereabouts rule shouldn’t apply to footballers, and that footballers should be treated differently to athletes in other sports.

The Guardian wonders why FIFA expects to be treated differently and mentions the results from a recent French study.

The answer, I believe, lies in the findings of a study carried by a French anti-doping agency, which tested hair samples from 138 professional athletes, including 32 footballers. (Unlike urine samples, where evidence of steroid use is “washed out” within days, hair samples can retain traces of drugs much longer.) The results — published in France last week but completely ignored in this country — revealed that seven players (21.8%) tested “positive” for some form of banned drug, a far greater proportion than that found in sports such as rugby and, ahem, cycling. It is a bad day indeed for football when it places higher in the league table of drug use than professional cycling, although, in fairness, there are reasons to be cautious about the French study.Most obviously, it took place only in France, which may or may not have a different culture of drug use than other European countries. Hair sample testing has no legal status in France, or anywhere else for that matter, and the identities of those who tested positive will never be revealed.

Football in Australia has always been the poor cousin of the ‘native’ codes, Australian Football (AFL) and Rugby League (NRL), generally gaining very little air time and being seen as a game for immigrants, or Wogs, Sheilas and Poofters as the title of Johnny Warren’s auto-biography suggests. The old National Soccer League was disbanded a few years ago, and relaunched after a year’s break as the A-League, an 8-team competition spread across the country.

Sydney FC became my local team, as their home stadium is about 3km from my house, and I’d always considered becoming a member, but never got around to it. That all changed today, when myself, Darrell & Monique bought our season passes for the upcoming season, due to start in August. We now have our own seats for all the home games, and preferential access to tickets for non-league games involving the club.

This will be the 4th season of the A-League, and it’s going from strength to strength. When the national side qualified for the 2006 World Cup, the country really woke up to football and the contrast with AFL & League was stark, neither of which have an international series (League does, but only a handful of countries play and Australia usually wins). The sport has managed to build on that foothold and average spectator numbers are rising every season. NRL, which I always thought was massive, turns out to be an ugly duckling, with the A-League already matching it in terms of average attendance. In fact, most of the NRL teams have dismal attendances, and the average is only as high as it is due to the Broncos and the Titans. Roll on next season and we can relegate them to third place!

At last week’s Congress, FIFA agreed to sign up to WADA’s drug testing protocols and English players are not happy about it.

Availability requires that sportsmen and women must “provide accurate, current location information”, requiring that for an hour of every day they are accountable for their movements. This has become a huge issue for 30 top English players, who are mobilising against what they consider would amount to house arrest for the prescribed hour.

Michael Beloff QC has provided counsel to the PPF over what grounds it might have to mount a legal challenge to Fifa’s new rules. Initially the players hope to negotiate with the international game’s ruling body over scrapping the pool, insisting that football is not a sport at risk of doping.

They are claiming there’s no risk of cheating in a sport where you can earn $250,000 per week! Are they serious?