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If any dope cheats
or tokers are among the footballers taking part in the World Cup, they
will have to get past Dr. Pieter van der Merwe and his team at the
South African Doping Control Laboratory.

The facility at the
University of Bloemfontein’s Department of Pharmacology will analyse
urine samples taken from players after each of the tournament’s 64
games.

“We are the only
one in South Africa doing this work and so we were asked by FIFA to do
it for the World Cup,” van der Merwe told Reuters during a visit to the
lab.

The World Cup’s
most infamous doping scandal was in 1994, when Argentina’s Diego
Maradona was sent home from the United States after failing a test for
ephedrine doping.

Maradona, who is in
South Africa this time round as Argentina’s manager, has claimed that
the negative result was due to a power drink.

Scotland’s Willie
Johnston also took an early flight home from Argentina in 1978 after he
was found to have taken a banned stimulant. He also said it was
inadvertently taken.

“Negative results would be nice. The chances that we’ll have a positive are slight. We’ll just have to see,” van der Merwe said.

FIFA regulations
demand that two players from each side give a urine sample, and if
requested, a blood sample, after every game. It can also carry out spot
checks.

The samples will be
delivered to the lab in this city on the plains of central South Africa
by road. FIFA wants to get the results back within 24 hours.

“It’s going to be hard. We’ll be working right through to get the results,” van der Merwe said.

Clean sheets

He has a team of eight assistants, who will work off the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) list of banned substances.

The samples are first taken to a preparation room, then passed through an array of machines for computer analysis.

According to FIFA,
anabolic steroids are not a big problem in world soccer, showing up in
only 0.3 per cent of tests. Use of recreational drugs such as cocaine
and marijuana show up more frequently. But of 33,000 tests done by FIFA
in 2008, only 75 led to sanctions, FIFA said in a statement.

The test results
during the World Cup will be highly secret. It will be up to FIFA, not
the laboratory, to announce any problems, van der Merwe said.

The South African
scientist has a lot of experience in such work for big sporting events.
His laboratory handled the doping tests for the 1995 Rugby World Cup,
which was famously won by South Africa who were also hosts then.

It also worked on the soccer Confederations Cup held in the country last year, when the tested players all had clean sheets.

“That was a nice
trial run working with FIFA, he said.” It’s a big honour for the
university, and we’re looking forward to be part of the World Cup.

“I like sport in general — but I’m more a rugby fan,” he added.