Leading footballers have already been trapped by controversial “three strikes and you’re out” rules that have quietly been introduced to combat drug taking in the game, The Times has learnt.

Players’ representatives believe that it will be only a matter of time before one of them falls foul of the new “whereabouts” drugs-testing policy similar to the regime that led to a one-year ban for Christine Ohuruogu, who returned to the track and won gold in the 400 metres at this year’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

Under the policy, introduced only six weeks ago, clubs are expected to notify drugs testers of players’ movements if they are injured. If they are not where they said they would be, it counts as a missed test.

Three such incidents will eventually count as a doping offence and would leave the player open to a ban of 18 months. Last night it emerged that a number of players from the Barclays Premier League and Football League have already “offended” for a first time. The new system is not as stringent as the demands of the code of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), which England internationals will be obliged to follow from next July. However, it has already caught out a number of players.

Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, told The Times that enough players had been caught out for “it to be a problem. This just indicates the administrative problem that could take place”. Taylor said he believed that a leading England footballer would soon find himself serving a suspension from the game for a doping offence, even though he is innocent of taking performance- enhancing drugs.

Rio Ferdinand, the Manchester United and England defender, missed the 2004 European Championship while serving an eight-month ban for failing to show up for a test at his club’s training ground.

The new Wada “whereabouts” rule will require a group of about 30 leading players in England to declare their location for an hour of every day, even when they are on holiday, so that the drugs testers can find them. This introduces the same administrative element to football that Ohuruogu fell foul of in athletics.

The Football Association (FA) acknowledged yesterday that its drugs-testing procedures had been sharpened from the days, pre-October, when clubs were obliged to indicate where and when they would be training. Clubs are now obliged to give information to the FA on the players who will not be with the main group — for injury reasons or otherwise — and these players have to give a guarantee of their whereabouts for an hour each day. The “three strikes and you’re out” rule already applies.

The danger here is that players’ plans will change and they will forget to register their change in whereabouts and fall foul of the rules. As Taylor said: “They will catch players at the clubs who, administratively, aren’t up to it.

“Everyone has to become aware of the seriousness of this. Because the big fear, the big risk, is an administrative error. It could become an administrative rule that is broken without the player being guilty of taking anything illegal. This is such a serious issue; we can’t have any ambiguity. The players will have to be very clear — that if their plans change, they must text in. There can be no passing on of blame.”

Taylor said that clubs will soon have an anti-doping officer on their payroll whose job will be to liaise with players on the details of their whereabouts. “Quite a lot of clubs are not getting their acts together,” he said.

The FA conducts 1,600 tests a year and prides itself on running the biggest drugs-testing programme in British sport. The FA said yesterday: “We are committed to being at the forefront of the fight against doping.”

With this new whereabouts programme, such commitment cannot be questioned.

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