The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the organisation charged with leading the fight against drug usage in sport, has this weekexpressed a concern at the lack of drug testing in Spanish football.
As reported byFootball Espana, a WADA official said:"The lack of testing in a country with one of the leading football leagues worldwide for a period of almost 12 months is alarming,� explained WADA.
"It will do little to instil confidence in clean sport at a time when it is needed most."
Since March 2016, Spain's anti-doping body (AEPSAD) has not sanctioned a single drugs test in the country since it was branded 'non-compliant' by WADA. In contrast, 799 tests have been carried out on Premier League players betweenMarch 2016 and now.
WADA had initially hoped that FIFA or UEFA would absorb control of drug testing in La Liga whilst the bodies sought out an agreement, but only 57 tests have been completed in the last year.
Things are even worse in Spain's second division where zero tests have been conducted in the same time period.
Drug-related controversy is not new to La Liga, where Real Sociedad were at the centre of the storm in 2008 when it was alleged that several players had been involved in doping and paying for 'strange medicines' over a period of six years.
The president at the time of the allegations, Inaki Badiola, has since admitted that the club sacked two doctors and paid somewhere in the region of £294k-per-year for the strange medicines - believed to be prohibited substances taken by players during a period in which the club finished second.
WADA themselves also hit the headlines in the Premier League recently when they banned Liverpool's Mamadou Sakho for a period of 30 days pending investigation after a banned substance was detected during a test.
An appeal ruled that WADA were wrong to have taken any action against the Frenchman -who missed the Europa League final, League Cup final and was omitted from the France squad for Euro 2016 as a result of the ban- as the substance should never have been on the banned list in the first place.