ESL introduces eSports drug testing policy, to debut at ESL One Cologne

One of the biggest eSports organisations has teamed up with two drugs testing bodies to help address the growing concern about performance enhancing drugs.

eSports companies queued up earlier this week to express their concern about the problem, which came to light following an interview with former Cloud9 player Kory ‘Semphis’ Friesen.

Now ESL has become the first to act on the matter, teaming up with both Germany’s NADA (Nationale Anti Doping Agentur) and Canada’s WADA (World Anti Doping Agency).

Its work with NADA will concentrate determining an anti-PED policy that is fair, feasible and respects the privacy of the players”, while WADA will be tasked with putting a testing policy into effect.

In the interim the company has also confirmed plans to introduce randomised PED skin testing at its ESL Cologne event in August.

The growing visibility and popularity of eSports, as well as increasing prize pools make it not only more tempting for teams and players to break the rules, but also more damaging to our sport as a whole when they do,” an ESL statement said.

ESL has an ongoing commitment to safeguarding the integrity of our competitions and providing a fair playground for professional players. ESL will remain proactive in ensuring all professional players and organisations involved in our competitions will be informed about the current status of this initiative.

Players participating in individual competitions under the ESL brand will be reached through their respective team managers and/or owners with updates on changes in the tournament rules. This will include the list of banned substances, the methods of testing, and the disciplinary actions for players caught using PEDs and/or admitting to having used them.”