WATCH FULL PRESS CONFERENCE HERE: http://www.ufc.com/media/ufc-press-event-2015 In light of recent high profile drugs use incidents among UFC fighters, the promotion held a press conference yesterday on 18th February 2015 to address the issue. UFC executives Lorenzo Fertitta, Dana White and Lawrence Epstein discussed the current state of performance-enhancing drug use in the UFC and MMA, pledging the UFC’s commitment to “an even playing field” in the sport and promising a multi-million dollar investment into in- and out-of competition testing of its 585 athletes worldwide. A more robust out-of-competition PED testing policy is set to become effective on 1st July 2015 with talks currently in progress with professional global testing agencies to create an international random drug testing protocol to World Anti-Doping Administration (WADA) standards. “We’ve been working on this for a long time,” Fertitta said. “What the Anderson Silva thing has done is prompted us to speed up the process. We don’t have the luxury to be academic and debate all these legal points. We’re going to make sure fighters are being tested.” IMMAF CEO Densign White commented: “This is a really positive step and the UFC is certainly moving in the right direction. The athletes and public can be assured that the UFC is taking the issue of PEDs use seriously and is working to ensure a level playing field. Longer bans from the sport than is currently the case for offenders is the right approach, and is more in line with Olympics policy which also sees athletes having to report their whereabouts every day. It is clear that in competition testing by itself is not the solution and out of competition testing needs to be random and more frequently used. This won’t completely solve the problem as there will always be individuals that offend, those who for reasons of greed and glory are prepared to take short cuts, risking not only their health and safety but that of others too. We support wholeheartedly the proposed plan of action by UFC to drive the cheats out of our sport.” IMMAF is also actively working to become a signatory of the WADA code for the Amateur league, which is a key component of meeting Sport Accord criteria. ]]>
