The two organisations have signed a cooperation agreement to strengthen the integrity of the Club World Cup by monitoring players from the 32 competing football clubs between June 14 and July 13. Testing will begin before and continue throughout the event, which will take place in the United States.
With the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics on the horizon, the country will first host the FIFA Club World Cup, followed by the World Cup in 2026. The latter will welcome the final at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday June 19.
Meanwhile, the third-place play-off will take place at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida. In other words, the two most significant football competitions, one for clubs and the other for national teams, will both be hosted Stateside. Notably, both finals will be held at the same venue: the MetLife Stadium.
FIFA is determined that nothing should tarnish the organisation of the tournament, and integrity in sport is one of its fundamental pillars. To this end, the governing body has strengthened its partnership with the United States Anti-Doping Agency to carry out anti-doping controls.
USADA will provide local Doping Control Officers to support FIFA’s own DCOs and the anti-doping testing plan during the tournament, and logistics and personnel are being expanded.
The path to the tournament will be closely monitored to give athletes full confidence that their competitors are complying with the regulations. All players will undergo rigorous testing in the weeks leading up to and during the competition.
This will be carried out under the direction of FIFA and in compliance with the anti-doping regulations, the World Anti-Doping Code and all applicable international standards. This will ensure FIFA has access to highly qualified and experienced local DCOs to support its testing missions.
In the lead-up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, two players were sanctioned following violations detected by the anti-doping network. Erick Alejandro Rivera of El Salvador received a three-year ban for using clostebol, an anabolic steroid, while Sabri Ali Mohamed of Djibouti was handed a three-year suspension after testing positive for abnormally high levels of testosterone.
