FA outline reasons for Manchester City's breach of anti-doping regulations

The Football Association have detailed the reasons why Manchester City were fined for breaking anti-doping regulations on three occasions during 2016.

The Premier League club were ordered to pay £35,000, after a three-man panel found City guilty of breaking the FA's 'whereabouts' rules.

Under anti-doping regulation 14D, clubs must provide the FA with accurate information about training sessions and players' addresses, so doping control officers can locate them when required.

If clubs fail to provide this information, or if testers are unable to track down the players they are looking for, then they are deemed to have breached the rule.

And if they breach the conditions three times during a rolling 12-month period, the club will face sanctions from the FA.

City's three misdemeanours were as follows:

• They failed to inform the FA of an extra first-team training session on July 12, 2016.
• A first-team player missing a test on September 1 of last year, because the hotel address provided was no longer correct.
• Anti-doping officials were unable to test reserve players on December 7, because six of them had been given the day off without the FA being informed.

Rules state that clubs must notify the governing body if five or more players, in a particular squad, are given a day off from a scheduled session.

City told the FA the two training-session breaches were "administrative errors" related to the club's new management team under Pep Guardiola, who they claim were unfamiliar with the system.

Leading athletics coach Toni Minichiello, who helped Jessica Ennis-Hill win Olympic and world titles, believes football is not doing enough to combat the threat of doping.

Minichiello told The Sun: "If sports sign up to the World Anti-Doping Agency code, then the rules should be uniform across all of them. That's the huge concern.

"There is the issue of how few tests football does. The system should be uniform to the point that everyone is tested a prerequisite amount of times.

"Then there's the issue of whereabouts, not being able to give a home address, not being tested in the close season. That doesn't happen in athletics or other sports. That's what surprises me.

"If the FA is really trying and saying it's the benchmark, then fine. But nobody should pull on an England shirt unless they can prove they have been tested at least twice in the run-up to a game. Not after they have played, not at a training camp.

"If we're a nation of sport that prides itself on being clean they should step it up a bit more."

So far this season, Fleetwood and Bournemouth have also been charged, with the latter still waiting to hear their sanction.