By DPA
Stuttgart : Doping in football is still practised, head of the German Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), Armin Baumert, said Friday.
"International and domestic football is not a doping-free zone. You don't have to be afraid if you say that doping still takes place in football," Baumert told SWR radio.
He said the German football federation DFB carried out 800 drug tests last year, but that only 87 of them were random tests. He said that NADA and DFB plan to raise the number of out-of-competition tests in the future.
The football-doping issue was raised again recently by club coach Peter Neururer, who said that doping with the stimulant fenetylline (also known as captagon) was a common practice in Bundesliga, the German league, in the 1980s.
Several former players confirmed Neururer's statements but there will be no sanctions because of the DFB's eight-year statute of limitations.