The use of performance-enhancing drugs in association football occurres since the 1920s. There was a low amount of unannounced drug testing and lack of sample preservation for a long period respectively still now in many areas. There were also no further investigations or consequences in the Operación Puerto doping case or other revelations. Another cause for concern is and was the widespread use of painkillers. However, they are legal. .

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. Anti-dopage. Dvorak : "Le profil biologique, une approche complètement nouvelle" , fifa.com (page visited on 11 June 2014).

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

World Cup 1954 A study titled "Doping in Germany from 1950 to today", published in August 2013, stated that some members of the West Germany national team received injections during their successful world cup 1954. Erik Eggers, who wrote about the pre-anabolic period in the study, was sure that the injections did not contain vitamin C ("They could have just eaten an orange") but assumed that they contained Pervitin: "If you take a look at newspaper reports back then and also the sports scientific environment plus the descriptions of team doctor Franz Loogen, you have to assume that amphetamines were administered." The study 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.

World Cup 1982 and 1986 Mohammed Kaci Saïd, Djamel Menad, Tedj Bensaoula, Medi Cerbah, Mohamed Chaib, Salah Larbès, Abdelkader Tlemçani, members of Algeria’s 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 did not 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 hormones, pills and injections (Liesen, head of the doctor team, injected 3000 himself) being used by national players during the World Cup 1986 in Mexico.

World Cup 1994 and 1998 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. In the same year former athlete Edwin Klein published a book called "red card for the German Football Association". Here, several witnesses told about multiple doping offences in German football.

Right after the World Cup 1998, all of the drug testing samples were destroyed. If the same would have happened in the Tour de France, Armstrong would not have been caught, former WADA director Dr. Alain Garnier argued. Marie-Georges Buffet, sports minister at that time, also recalls that she felt pressurised when she initiated an unannounced test in December 1997. There were no more unannounced tests after that. Jean-Pierre Paclet, physician of Les Bleus in 1998, mentions "abnormal haematocrit values" in his book. Gary Neville, former English international, recalled that "some of the players started taking injections from (...) a Frenchman called Dr Rougier". After some felt an energy boost, there was "a queue to see the doctor before the Argentina match". At this time, many players worried about the increase of intensity and physical stress in football.

Doping history in football clubs

1920s Arsenal had an FA Cup encounter against West Ham United in 1925. Arsenal had finished the previous season at rank 19 and manager Leslie Knighton was pessimistic about their chances of winning. He obtained pills from a "distinguished West End doctor" and tested them by himself. After taking one, he "felt that he could push down a wall with his fists". He handed them to his team and they, according to his 1948 memoir, transformed into "lively young lions". Unfortunately for them, the game was postponed due to fog and finally ended in a draw the next day.

1950s In 1958, Gerardo Ottani made a survey. In this survey, 27% of the professionals from the Italian leagues were consuming amphetamines. 68% were using anabolic steroids and 62% were taking stimulants that effected respiration and cardiac output. Ottani was employed at Bologna and switched to a medical profession after his career..

1960s

Italy In the 1960s, Inter Milan has its greatest period of success known as [La] Grande Inter ("Great Inter"), achieved when Helenio Herrera was their manager and that previously coached teams like Atletico Madrid and Barcelona. He won seven trophies with the club. In 2004, Ferruccio Mazzola, that played mostly for teams like SS Lazio, Venezia and Fiorentina and with Inter for only one match during that period, many years after Herrera death and on the occasion of the release of his new book, accused him of distributing pills that probably were performance-enhancing drugs, assuming there were amphetamines, among the team players, especially the substitute players "who often served as guinea pigs for trying new pills and see if they worked." When he found out that some in the team were spitting them out, he dissolved them in coffee to make sure they were consumed, a practice known as Caffè di Herrera ("Herrera's Coffee"). Most of the former players denied the accusations. In 2010, Inter sued Mazzola for defamation but lost the case, the court believed him. One of the reasons he spoke up were the serious medical conditions and deaths of some of his former members and also in other teams, especially Lazio and Fiorentina, where he played and with AS Roma where Herrera later coached, that he presumed were correlated: Giuliano Taccola (25 years old with AS Roma, never played for Inter), then team's captain Armando Picchi (died aged 36 due to cancer), Marcello Giusti, Carlo Tagnin (67 years old), Mauro Bicicli (66 years old), Ferdinando Miniussi (60 years old for Cirrhosis, goalkeeper), Enea Masiero (75 years old) and Pino Longoni (63 years old, never played for Inter first squad). He suspected the drugs, or whatever those were, to be the cause of their sufferings. In 2015, his brother Sandro, who denied everything at the beginning, admitted that the he was right and that he had some health problems at that time and he did not know why, but later in 2017 changed his version and said that there were nothing important and that those practices were not that effective and that the real doping from Herrera was psychological, making them believe how strong they really were, and that his younger brother had reasons for revenge against Inter.

England Everton, one of the top clubs in the English football league, were champions of the 1962–63 season, and it was done, according to a national newspaper investigation, with the help of Benzedrine. Word spread after Everton's win that the drug had been involved. The newspaper investigated, cited where the reporter believed it had come from, and quoted the goalkeeper, Albert Dunlop, as saying:

I cannot remember how they first came to be offered to us. But they were distributed in the dressing rooms. We didn't have to take them but most of the players did. The tablets were mostly white but once or twice they were yellow. They were used through the 1961–62 season and the championship season which followed it. Drug-taking had previously been virtually unnamed in the club. But once it had started we could have as many tablets as we liked. On match days they were handed out to most players as a matter of course. Soon some of the players could not do without the drugs.Gabbert, Michael: How we uncovered the Everton drug scandal, The People, UK, 13 September 1964

The club agreed that drugs had been used but that they "could not possibly have had any harmful effect." Dunlop, however, said he had become an addict.

1970s

Netherlands Performance-enhancing drugs were used on a regular basis according to witnesses of that period, mostly in Ajax, Feyenoord and AZ Alkmaar during competitive matches, including the 1970 and 1972 Intercontinental Cups won by the first two cited clubs. Jan Peters recounted drug use before the big games. They seemed to work as he felt energy boosts and euphoria. Johnny Rep, former Ajax player, claimed that "everyone was on something". He recounted injections for everyone on 1 November 1979, ahead of a match of his team, Saint-Etienne, against PSV Eindhoven. Pierre Poty, who was physician of the club at that time, also revealed that he worked with uppers and reasoned it with the fantastic effects. Fritz Kessel, also physician, worked for the Dutch national side for 30 years and revealed that drugs were common in the 1974 and 1978 FIFA World Cups. He said that to Guido Derksen, writer of Voetbal Mysteries, who wrote that players "consumed tons of amphetamines."

West Germany An investigative commission of sports medicine in Freiburg claims that in the late 1970s and in the 1980s Stuttgart and Freiburg football clubs were operating with Anabolika. VfB Stuttgart reordered Anabolika at least once.

East Germany