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Dept for Culture Media and Sport

Answer

Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many tests for banned substances have been undertaken on footballers playing in the (a) Premier League and (b) Football League in each of the last five years. [8257] Mr. Caborn: The anti-doping programmes for the football governing bodies in the UK are delivered through the national anti-doping organisation UK Sport. UK Sport monitors the type and level of testing. For the Football Association, the nature of promotion and relegation within the Football League and Premiership means that it is difficult to present meaningful and accurate figures that separate the Premier League and the Football League testing over the last five years. Teams may have been in numerous different divisions during that period, individual players may have moved clubs or been included in testing of international competitions or squads. Furthermore, it is not in the interests of an effective testing programme to reveal the testing plan for any sport and therefore the figures are represented below as a total. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Year Total number of tests for the FA 1996-97 478 1997-98 517 1998-99 539 1999-2000 1,061 2000-01 1,016 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. The above totals include testing across all divisions of the Football League and Premiership and include testing at women's football and FA Conference football as well as FA Vase testing. Also included in the programme is the testing of national squads (male and female) and target testing through punitive action and that performed at the request of clubs. The programme covers all possible periods of training and competition for an athlete, as testing can take place on any day of the week. To explain the significant level of testing for the Football Association programmes, it may be helpful to point out that for 1999-2000 and 2000-01 they comprise over one sixth of the total tests conducted within the UK Sport testing programme.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

8257; 373 c183-4W

Session

2001-02

Subjects

Drugs Football Misuse Sports Sports competitors Testing Football Association

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk