Football governing body FIFA has cleared two Nigerian Super Falcons players, China-based Stella Mbachu and her Denmark-based counterpart, Chichi Igbo, of doping offences in the on-going fifth edition of the Women's World Cup in China.
  
The duo were among the first set of players picked for tests shortly after the commencement of the tourney. Mbachu was voted Woman of the Match in Nigeria's 1-1 tie against Sweden on Tuesday at the Chengdu Stadium.
  
All unannounced tests conducted by FIFA's doping control doctors at the training camps ahead of the tourney proved negative.
  
So far, a total of 24 urine samples from the randomly selected teams of defending champions - Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Nigeria and Sweden - have been analyzed at the WADA-certified laboratory in Beijing.
  
This was announced at a joint FIFA/WADA media briefing with Prof. Jiri Dvorak, FIFA's chief medical officer, and WADA's Director General, David Howman, prior to the match between England and Japan, which ended 2-2 at the Shanghai Hongkou Stadium.
  
"The number of pre-competition tests for the FIFA Women's World Cup was determined using international standards. Furthermore, FIFA will continue to base its anti-doping strategy not only on testing, but also on comprehensive educational and prevention initiatives," said Dvorak.
  
With regard to blood testing, the FIFA chief medical officer said "we will not conduct blood tests as there are no further results that would provide us with additional indications. To do so, we would need to collect comparable blueprint data from all of the players over a certain period of time."
  
Afterward, WADA's Howman said, "Together with FIFA, we are now working on developing a so-called athletic passport to be able to collect this personal hormone profile and other blood parameters to enhance testing and get really valuable information for detecting modifications through doping."
  
"I would also like to thank FIFA for this opportunity to join them here at a major sports event in China in the build-up to the Olympic Games next year, which is very important for our planning. We have an excellent co-operation in developing a true partnership with FIFA and working hand-in-hand in the fight against doping," he said.
  
Howman is currently in China at FIFA's invitation in order to observe the anti-doping procedures during the flagship women's football competition, which kicked off in Shanghai on Sept. 10 to end after 32 matches on Sept. 30.
  
Throughout the 2007 Cup, urine samples from two players per team would be tested after each match, with all samples evaluated at the WADA-certified laboratory in Beijing.
  
In 1970, FIFA became one of the sports federations to introduce doping control tests. Many of the research activities conducted by the FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Center, a body founded in 1994, are aimed at gaining more knowledge of doping substances and methods, improving methods of detection and working on the list of prohibited substances.

(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2007)