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All 11 Rostov players pass FIFA doping tests, says club

The FIFA logo is seen at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland March 18, 2016. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich

By Dmitriy Rogovitskiy MOSCOW (Reuters) - All 11 players from Russia's Rostov passed FIFA doping tests following their Premier League match last week against Dynamo Moscow which they won 3-1, the club said on Wednesday. The tests were undertaken by FIFA on May 12 immediately after the match following media reports that Rostov's players may have taken the banned substance meldonium. "Our club received the results of the doping tests today, which were taken from all 11 footballers from our team after the game with Dynamo. All the results from the doping tests were negative. There were no banned substances in the samples our players gave," a statement from Rostov on their website www.fc-rostov.ru said. Meldonium was added to the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) list of banned substances on 1 January 2016 and more than 200 athletes, including five-times grand slam tennis champion Maria Sharapova have tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug. Rostov's win over Dynamo left them second in the table, two points behind CSKA Moskva with one game left to play. They have already qualified for a place in the Champions League next season for the first time in their history. (Reporting By Dmitriy Rogovitskiy; Editing by Richard Balmforth)