With soccer's World Cup less than three months away, it has become apparent that testing procedures for performance-enhancing drugs won't meet the currently accepted gold standards of international sports, veterans of the antidoping movement say.

FIFA, soccer's world governing body, hasn't caught a men's World Cup player for PED use since Argentine star Diego Maradona tested positive for five variants of the stimulant ephedrine in 1994. FIFA officials hold this up as evidence that the World Cup is largely devoid of drug cheats, though antidoping officials say it could be evidence of an ineffective testing program.

Most of the shortcomings of the testing program for the Brazil World Cup, which begins June 12, are a result of the country not having a testing lab accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). WADA suspended the accreditation of the existing lab in Rio de Janeiro last fall after it fell below the agency's required standards, which can mean it failed to determine the correct results on samples sent to evaluate its proficiency, according to Jiri Dvorak, FIFA's chief medical officer. That will require FIFA to fly all samples from Brazil to a lab in Lausanne, Switzerland, for evaluation during the World Cup.

Transporting samples is routine in the testing world. But the process outlined for Brazil is fraught with potential for mishaps, although Dvorak said in a recent interview that the organization had the necessary procedures in place to ensure effectiveness.

As usual, some 256 players will be randomly selected to provide samples at matches. FIFA is bringing in over a dozen physicians to collect the samples, rather than relying on doping-control officers who don't have medical degrees, Dvorak said.