The use of performance-enhancing drugs in association football is not widely associated with the sport because of lack of evidence, unlike individual sports such as cycling, weight-lifting, and track and field. Like most high-profile team sports, football suffers from recreational drug use, the case of Diego Maradona and his ban from 1990-91 Serie A by using cocaine during a match is the most known example. Maradona was banned again three years latter by have used ephedrine during the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
Incidence of the use of performance-enhancing drugs ("doping") in football seems to be low. However, much closer collaboration and further investigation seems needed with regard to banned substances, detection methods, and data collection worldwide.
International associations
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.
Doping history in world cups
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. It 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.
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.
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.