Leicester City are an efficient, well-run club who take the FA’s anti-doping policy seriously. However, they have on their books a player who has unwittingly broken the new “whereabouts” rule and as a result, without any apparent intention to dodge the system, has one missed test against his name.

Leicester’s “missed test” is a glaring example of the problems that the whereabouts system brings with it. The offence of the player was to leave a training session early. The evening before, Leicester had played a match and Nigel Pearson, the manager, had informed his players that if they went to training the next day, the trade-off was that those who arrived early could leave early, too.

The player in question was one of those who left early and after he had gone, the drugs tester arrived, asking to see him. Even though he had been at the training ground, this counted against him as a missed test. If the player misses another two tests, the total will count against him as a doping offence and he will face a suspension from the game of up to two years.

The new system requires players to be accountable for their whereabouts so that drugs testers can find them. Until this season, clubs were obliged to inform the FA of their movements — their training and travel plans — so that the testers could always locate them.

However, from October 1, a new system was introduced whereby players became accountable, particularly when injured or not operating under the same timetable as the rest of the squad. On these occasions, players are obliged to e-mail or phone an FA hotline to explain where they will be for a period of one hour every day.

“It never crossed our minds that the player leaving early could result in a missed test,” Andrew Neville, the Leicester club secretary, said. “But it has certainly sharpened our minds as to just how detailed we have to be.

“The player himself was a bit surprised. He felt that he hadn’t done anything wrong. It was not until subsequently that we received the letter informing us of the missed test that we were able to respond. We did say that the player had been present at training, but that didn’t count.”

Neville explained how much the culture of communication within a football club had had to change because of the whereabouts system. One of the biggest concerns is when a player is on loan to another side and the clubs are effectively sharing responsibility for him. Occasionally that player will train at his home side and his loan club in the same week.

“The drug testers then won’t know which club that player is training with,” Neville said. “You have to be so careful now. You have to watch everyone.”

The introduction of the whereabouts system was presented to the clubs by the FA in July and the new rules were then agreed upon and incorporated. At Leicester, the players have been through an education process, they have received memorandums from the Professional Footballers’ Association and there are reminders and posters on the club walls.

“We have to be very reliant on the coaching staff because they are the ones who change the arrangements at the last minute,” Neville said. “If they do not pass that information on to us, we have a problem.”

Many football clubs have been nervous about the new system, particularly with the extra administration that it requires. One change initiated since the October 1 kick-off is a default system whereby many of the clubs have simply given the home addresses of their entire squad to the FA. On the occasions when certain players will not be with the squad, the clubs have started to inform the FA that the player will be at his home from 6-7am.