EHFA was awarded European funding for a project it called Fitness Against Doping in November 2010.
The award put the association into a subject it had been moving towards. Anti-doping work in Europe had been organised largely around competitive and elite sport, while the fitness sector served the general population, and the Commission was looking to EHFA to lead a preventative strategy against doping practices where they existed. The association's case was that its members' facilities were where a large part of the population exercised, so a sector claiming a place in the public health response had to be able to speak to the problem.
The funding came through the Commission's sport programme, the route that had already carried the association's qualifications projects and its evidence review. EU funding of this kind was how a small association carried out work it could not otherwise have staffed, and the project ran on beyond the award: the association reported preliminary results from it in 2011. The award came in the same month as the London Summit, at which the sector made its public commitment, and the two belonged to the same effort to be recognised as a partner in health policy. See Fitness Against Doping and EU projects.