This article examines FIFA's and the IAAF's different approaches to doping in sport. Through access to documents of their respective departments working on doping issues and by applying a new institutional theoretical perspective, it is shown that until the mid 1990s FIFA considered doping to be a problem primarily found outside football while the IAAF considered it to be one of the most serious problems facing athletics. These different approaches impacted how the two federations viewed the process leading to the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Accordingly, the IAAF is termed an "institutional entrepreneur", while FIFA has greater reservations about the new agency. Circumstances such as the close interrelations between the IOC and the IAAF, the competitive relationship between the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, power-relations in the organizational field and intra-organizational dynamics are examined as decisive factors.