West Ham charged by FA over breach of anti-doping rules

West Ham have been charged over a breach of the Football Association's rules on anti-doping, the governing body has announced.

A statement from The FA on Tuesday confirmed that, having allegedly failed to provide accurate information relating to "Club Whereabouts" on three occasions over a 12-month period, the club have breached Regulation 14(d) of its rules and have seven days to respond.

While the club are treating the matter with the utmost seriousness, Standard Sport understands each of the alleged breaches are accidental and by no means intentional actions to evade FA anti-doping procedures.

The FA regulations state: “It shall also be a breach of this Regulation 14 by the Club if the information contained in such reports is either initially inaccurate or has not been updated by the Club as necessary to ensure it remains accurate.”

However, the accusations do not constitute a violation of anti-doping rules, but amount to misconduct.

A West Ham United spokesman said: “The breach relates to administrative oversights on The FA's whereabouts system, for example a player’s address had been registered and the house number digits transposed, and the club will be responding to The FA in due course.

“We would like to make it clear that the breach is a club administrative matter and does not concern any of our players.”