Germany’s national anti-doping agency NADA paid a surprise visit to the country’s football team a day before their match against Paraguay. However, just one player was tested and due to privacy regulations it isn’t even clear if NADA took a blood sample of this player. The reason NADA took only one sample is the agency’s limited budget. Every single test gets deducted from the annual budget that is made available by Germany’s football association DFB.

A five year old study seems to contradict the whole Anti-Doping-Talk of German football officials: high blood values from the Bundesliga season 2008/2009 might indicate blood doping. The German football federation DFB says, the values can be explained by normal deviations. But as long as doping controls don't get better in the Bundesliga, doping is on the table.

Sepp Blatter surprised with some rather critic statements on FIFA’s fight against doping. The president of football’s world governing body not only confirmed that the sport has a doping problem, but Blatter also says FIFA lags far behind in the fight against doping especially in detecting new drugs. In the case of Germany, Blatter claims the country needs to implement an anti-doping law in order to attack the issue of doping in football.

Fabrizio Ravanelli has played for Juventus Turin from 1992 to 1996. At that time Juve was involved in one of the biggest doping scandals football ever had. Ravanelli became a coach. Last Sunday the French club AJ Ajaccio (Ligue 1) fired him. According [to LeMonde](http://mobile.lemonde.fr/sport/article/2013/11/06/les-methodes-contestees-de-fabrizio-ravanelli-ex-entraineur-d-ajaccio_3509203_3242.html) one of his former players blamed Ravanelli to force players to take dubious nutrition supplements.

Xabi Alonso and the World Cup 2006?

Unknown pills, injections, depressions after a big competition: Former England defender Danny Mills talks with the Telegraph about his international career. [A must read.](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/england/9858898/Former-Leeds-and-England-defender-Danny-Mills-says-players-would-do-almost-anything-to-get-an-edge.html)

The doping trail leads to the very top, to the top of the national football federation of Spain, to José Luis Astiazarán. Astiazarán is president of the Spanish Primera Division and vice-president of the national federation since 2005. When he was president of Real Sociedad San Sebastian he bought doping substances from Eufemiano Fuentes, reported the Spanish Newspaper El Pais and published prooving documents on the web. Xabi Alonso became a star while playing for San Sebastian in its suspicious time. The World-Anti-Doping Agency WADA started an investigation.

The former president of the Real Sociedad San Sebastian (Spanish Primera Division) confirmed in an interview with the Spanish sports paper AS, that team doctors bought doping substances for a period of several years.

Eufemiano Fuentes admitted today that he provided athletes from different sports with doping substances or methods. Beneath cyclists he worked with track and field athletes, boxers, tennis and football players. He admitted providing them with blood transfusions.

FIFA has reacted on the debate around doping-doc Eufemiano Fuentes. It sent out a press release, but this e-mail just rehashes things that were already known. WADA praised FIFA, although the fight against doping in football has big gaps.

The German football federation DFB has apparently finally decided to introduce blood tests. However, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the frequency of the controls will be very low.