FINA’s claim comes at the end of what they described as a "challenging year for sport", which saw the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Independent Commission confirm reports of state-supported doping within the Russian athletics team.

Following the revelations about Russia, John Leonard, executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, said in an interview that the probability of clean swimming contests at next year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro is "zero".

"Everything that is wrong with Russian athletics is wrong with swimming," he said. 

Earlier this year, Australia's head swim coach Jacco Verhaeren had warned that swimmers themselves were losing faith in the system.

"There are concerns about what is exactly happening to prevent doping use," he said in an interview with The Australian newspaper.

"The lack of transparency is concerning."

China's Sun Yang, an Olympic gold medallist in the 400 and 1,500 metres freestyle events at the London 2012 Olympics, was suspended for three months in May 2014 for using the banned stimulant trimetazidine.

FINA did not announce the penalty for seven months until after he had served his punishment.

At this year's World Aquatic Championships in Kazan, Sun was named male swimmer of the meeting after winning the 400m and 800m freestyle. 

Other Olympic and world champions who have tested positive in the past two years, like South Korea's Olympic 400m freestyle champion Park Tae-Hwan and Russia's world breaststroke champion Yuliya Efimova also received reduced bans, which means they could be eligible to compete at Rio 2016.

Last month, FINA announced that every sample collected during its 2015 World Aquatics Championships in Kazan will be removed from the Moscow laboratory at the centre of athletics' doping scandal and stored instead in the WADA-accredited laboratory in Barcelona.

Russia hosted the World Championships for the first time this year from July 24 to August 9, during which 645 samples were collected for analysis by the FINA Doping Control Review Board, led by Professor Andrew Pipe, as part of the in-competition testing programme.

These comprised of 457 urine and 188 blood tests, while there were a further 418 blood screenings as part of the athlete biological passport programme.

The tests were analysed in the then WADA-accredited laboratory in Moscow, under the supervision of independent observers from the accredited laboratories in Barcelona and London.

WADA, however, suspended the accreditation of the Moscow Antidoping Centre last month following a recommendation from its Independent Commission, chaired by Richard Pound, whose report had been heavily critical of the laboratory's performance.

It also led to the resignation of laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov, who had been accused of covering up positive doping tests, extorting money from athletes and destroying 1,417 samples before inspectors visited.

In light of this, FINA said every sample collected during this year’s World Aquatics Championships will be transferred to Barcelona.

"FINA has never hesitated to punish those who are found guilty of breaking the rules, not respecting fair play and ultimately jeopardising the integrity of our sport - the first versions of the WADA code were greatly inspired from the existing FINA anti-doping rules," read a FINA statement.

"Since then, FINA has conducted a ruthless fight against cheating in the sport and guards the best interests of the honest, clean athletes, in close cooperation with the World Anti-Doping Agency.

"Based on the allegations which have since been confirmed by the WADA Independent Commission report, FINA reaffirmed its policy on doping control for aquatics athletes worldwide in order to continue optimising the efficacy of our anti-doping strategies; to preserve the validity and integrity of FINA competitions; and to protect the clean athletes.

"Moreover, we welcome the opportunity to engage in dialogue with our key stakeholders across the world as we look to develop more robust and rigorous anti-doping strategies.

"It is important the entire aquatics world unites together in a collaborative effort to eradicate to doping from our sport."

In a bid to ensure it delivers an accurate account of its entire finances and maintains the highest levels of transparency and accountability, FINA has this year re-appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers as its external auditors, meeting the legal requirements on licensing according to the Auditor Oversight Act and independency.

FINA claimed took a first step to greater transparency in April by disclosing that its top officials were volunteers who did not receive a salary.

It came less than a month after it emerged that International Olympic Committee members were getting an increase in their expenses coincident with the Olympic Movement’s transparency drive.

They did, however, benefit from a 33 per cent increase from $300 (£202/€275) to $400 (£269/€366) in their per diem payments while on FINA business.