Doping in football

Cienciano

Second Captains podcast today had a good bit on doping in football from Richard Sadlier. Not in the football show, the other one.
http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/second-captains

Richie reckons teams aren't doing it, it would be too hard to keep quiet. There'd be too many people involved. But players could easily go off and do it themselves.
But like all sports, the leading authorities don't want to know. Wenger said there was 50 tests for his entire squad last year. That's actually pathetic, there should be a lot more. The fact that you don't get the odd guy caught tells you all you need to know about the testing methods.

Richard Hillman

Cienciano wrote: »

Second Captains podcast today had a good bit on doping in football from Richard Sadlier. Not in the football show, the other one.
http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/second-captains

Richie reckons teams aren't doing it, it would be too hard to keep quiet. There'd be too many people involved. But players could easily go off and do it themselves.
But like all sports, the leading authorities don't want to know. Wenger said there was 50 tests for his entire squad last year. That's actually pathetic, there should be a lot more. The fact that you don't get the odd guy caught tells you all you need to know about the testing methods.

This is a big tell-tale sign. Nobody tested positive at the recent football or rugby world cups. Are they honestly telling us that not 1 player out of over 700 in the FIFA WC and over 600 in RWC even accidently took something??? It is completely ludicrous when you think about it.


The players dont want to know just in case they accidently or intentionally are taking something,
The clubs/managers dont want to know in case one of their players are at it,
The associations dont want to know in case their national team suffer,
UEFA/FIFA dont want to know in case it damages the image of the sport,
The fans dont want to know in case it is one of their own club/national team,
Nobody with any power seems to want to know.

Richard Hillman

Richard Hillman wrote: »

This is a big tell-tale sign. Nobody tested positive at the recent football or rugby world cups. Are they honestly telling us that not 1 player out of over 700 in the FIFA WC and over 600 in RWC even accidently took something???

It is completely ludicrous when you think about it.

Don't forget how many rugby players, especially forwards, have asthma and get exemptions.

MD1990

Atletico Madrid's Gabi goes into Tuesday's match against Barcelona as one of the hardest working players in the Champions League.

The midfielder has covered just over 87000 metres in total and is ranked ahead of team mate Antoine Griezmann with 84539m.

Paris Saint-Germain's Blaise Matuidi is third on the list with 83831m and in a nod to the ethic that manager Diego Simeone instills into his side, six Rojiblancos players are in the top ten.

Gabi's captaincy is much more than just wearing an armband.

He has already played 688 minutes so far in European football's most glamourous competition and has run the equivalent of over two marathons in that time.

By contrast, Barcelona has fewer players covering similar distances with the exception of Ivan Rakitic at 71035m.

I would be suspicious of Atletico.

dave_o_brien

SantryRed wrote: »

Is there any rules in football, like cycling, to prohibit the use of EPO? In cycling, your red blood cell count had to be below 50%, but I don't think there's such a rule in football?

That haematocrit level basis is no longer in effect given the efficacy of tests that can identify EPO. The haematocrit levels are still checked via the biological passport, and is sued as a red-flag issue, but cannot be enforced.

FWIW, every sport has enormous problems. In soccer, I would be shocked if it wasn't just more sophisticated. The above Kevin Doyle argument holds no weight with me; I'm sure his medical team had him on all sorts of supplements* that meant he didn't need to go chasing PED's.


*supplements can be translated to PED's

The_Kew_Tour

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Don't forget how many rugby players, especially forwards, have asthma and get exemptions.

85% of the Irish rugby team in 2008 week which is nuts

StringerBell

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

85% of the Irish rugby team in 2008 week which is nuts

Its a loophole that is used by plenty, but on the surface it ruffles no feathers so a blind eye is turned.

Cienciano

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

85% of the Irish rugby team in 2008 week which is nuts

That's crazy, any link to the story? I googled it and couldn't find anything, but found a few good paul kimmage articles about PEDs in rugby. Argentina team from 2007 gets a mention here:
http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/international-rugby/paul-kimmage-rugby-needs-to-address-drugs-issue-all-we-are-hearing-is-silence-30796745.html

gucci

StringerBell wrote: »

Its a loophole that is used by plenty, but on the surface it ruffles no feathers so a blind eye is turned.

Thats the problem / issue I have with this sort of thing.
I would love to believe every sport was clean and the people in charge were trying to make it as clean as possible. But the problem is by its nature, sport is competitive, so people will take risks or what ever is necessary to gain that .01% in training, performance and recovery.

The fact there are so many "medicines" available that arent actually currently banned, means a huge quantity of athletes can legitimately take cocktails of stuff to give them the edge, and until those items are on the banned list, nobody even questions why they are taking it!

Add to that all the actual illegal stuff that is probably being turned a blind eye to it and....well it just kinda makes you think of it really being a house of cards type scenario!

Martypants1

Anyone hear mark lawrinson on the radio the other day?

Main gist was that he doesn't think there's doping. Then he goes on to say he's sure players use drugs to recover quicker but he doesn't think there's any drugs that can make someone a better player. :pac:

Absolute idiot.

Alf Veedersane

Cienciano wrote: »

Second Captains podcast today had a good bit on doping in football from Richard Sadlier. Not in the football show, the other one.
http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/second-captains

Richie reckons teams aren't doing it, it would be too hard to keep quiet. There'd be too many people involved. But players could easily go off and do it themselves.
But like all sports, the leading authorities don't want to know. Wenger said there was 50 tests for his entire squad last year. That's actually pathetic, there should be a lot more. The fact that you don't get the odd guy caught tells you all you need to know about the testing methods.

Didn't listen to that podcast yet but Sadlier was on a Channel 4 doc a few years ago and said he was put on a heap of tablets every day at Millwall by the nutritionist. Then had his best season.

Next season, the nutritionist leaves out one set of pills. Turns out they're banned.

He had an article in the Indo about it around the time Kolo Toure tried his wife's 'diet pills' and failed a test.

jmayo

McDave wrote: »

I think the Panama leaks shows there's a lot of loose money out there looking for things to do. I find it hard to believe all that tax dodging isn't being used in football for competitive advantages and laundering. I've never been able to get my head around superagents being allowed to own players. It always sounded iffy to me, shifting players around for masses of money, and behaving almost like little corporations of their own.

The mention of Messi in relation to Panama really gets me thinking about just how dodgy football could be. This stuff about legitimate use of HGH. I don't really buy it.

Not to mention the FIFA scandals. And the horror of the abuses surrounding the Qatar WC, which I probably won't watch, if I haven't given up on soccer as a sport by then like I've given up on athletics and cycling.

IMHO Soccer is one of the most corrupt sports out there.
How can be any other way when you see the amount of money now involved.

Never mind fixing where tournaments are held, tournament winners were fixed as in 1934 in Italy and Argentina in 1978 to name two.

It now transpires everyone of the top echelon of FIFA looks to be dirty and the latest revelations link one of the so called ethics committee with some of the guys the US are doing for fraud and money laundering.

Then add all the other stuff down the years like betting scandals, match fixing by league winners like Marseille & Juve, the ref bribing by Belgium and Belgian clubs in early 80s, tax avoidance schemes, under the counter payments, the sport has a long tradition of dodgy behaviour.
And yet people will argue that the sport has no doping or very very little.

The usual argument given by the naysayers to soccer doping is that no amount of performance enhancing drugs would make someone a more skillful player.
Yes no amount of doping will make a player vastly more skill full.

But football isn't all about skill, especially nowadays where fitness plays such an important part.

It is about conditioning, stamina, speed, ability to train harder for longer and ability to recover between matches and from injury.

Everytime someone compares the likes of Messi to Maradona or Pele, the refrain is how much football has changed and how the game is much faster now and the players are much fitter.

Yes like in most sports the partcipants are now much fitter and faster than years ago.

Yet unlike in most sports, soccer players haven't resorted to illegal means to reach those new levels.
Pull the other one.

Doping has been shown to be endemic or at the very least quiet common in a lot of the sports requiring physical exertion.
First it was athletics, weigh-lifting, swimming, cycling, boxing, baseball, now tennis, Aussie Rules.

And the questions or revelations are always first met with scepticism, denials, shooting the messengers, but little by little the truth comes out.

The_Kew_Tour

Cienciano wrote: »

That's crazy, any link to the story? I googled it and couldn't find anything, but found a few good paul kimmage articles about PEDs in rugby. Argentina team from 2007 gets a mention here:
http://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/international-rugby/paul-kimmage-rugby-needs-to-address-drugs-issue-all-we-are-hearing-is-silence-30796745.html

I don't but I remember it being on Independent in 2008. I pretty sure September 2008. It was story blown over.

I played with Lansdowne myself for while and it's well known plenty Irish lads were on it.

Cienciano

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Didn't listen to that podcast yet but Sadlier was on a Channel 4 doc a few years ago and said he was put on a heap of tablets every day at Millwall by the nutritionist. Then had his best season.

Next season, the nutritionist leaves out one set of pills. Turns out they're banned.

He had an article in the Indo about it around the time Kolo Toure tried his wife's 'diet pills' and failed a test.

Richie tells that exact story in the podcast

SantryRed

The reason I'm so convinced that doping is happening throughout football is the lack of positive test results that are out there. The only high profile (ish) drug doping scandal I can think of is the Brazilian player Fred, and I'm pretty sure he was caught with a masking drug in his system and banned, all this as he was not supposed to be part of the Brazilian Copa America squad, but was a late call up to the side.

EDIT: And even then, he only got a year!

Alf Veedersane

SantryRed wrote: »

The reason I'm so convinced that doping is happening throughout football is the lack of positive test results that are out there. The only high profile (ish) drug doping scandal I can think of is the Brazilian player Fred, and I'm pretty sure he was caught with a masking drug in his system and banned, all this as he was not supposed to be part of the Brazilian Copa America squad, but was a late call up to the side.

EDIT: And even then, he only got a year!

There have been a few and the bans have usuallly been minimal.
Stam got 5 months after testing positive for nandrolone. Was reduced to 4 on appeal.
Fernando Couto only served 4 months for nandrolone as well.
Guardiola, 4 months for nandrolone
Frank de Boer ended up with no ban, despite testing positive for nandrolone but he went down the Contador route and blamed contaminated food and got off.

The only player that I remember getting any decent stretch, aside from the people like Caniggia and Maradona who tested positive for cocaine, was Abel Xavier who ended up with 12 months for dianabol

joe123

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

There have been a few and the bans have usuallly been minimal.
Stam got 5 months after testing positive for nandrolone. Was reduced to 4 on appeal.
Fernando Couto only served 4 months for nandrolone as well.
Guardiola, 4 months for nandrolone
Frank de Boer ended up with no ban, despite testing positive for nandrolone but he went down the Contador route and blamed contaminated food and got off.

The only player that I remember getting any decent stretch, aside from the people like Caniggia and Maradona who tested positive for cocaine, was Abel Xavier who ended up with 12 months for dianabol

Mutu got a fairly hefty ban for cocaine too didnt he?

bucketybuck

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

There have been a few and the bans have usuallly been minimal.
Stam got 5 months after testing positive for nandrolone. Was reduced to 4 on appeal.
Fernando Couto only served 4 months for nandrolone as well.
Guardiola, 4 months for nandrolone
Frank de Boer ended up with no ban, despite testing positive for nandrolone but he went down the Contador route and blamed contaminated food and got off.

The only player that I remember getting any decent stretch, aside from the people like Caniggia and Maradona who tested positive for cocaine, was Abel Xavier who ended up with 12 months for dianabol

Stam, Couto, Guardiola and De Boer?

Frankly, its noticeable how far you have to go back for famous cases.

Blatter

Afaik, Abel Xavier is the only player in PL history to test positive for PEDs.

That should speak for itself.

Alf Veedersane

joe123 wrote: »

Mutu got a fairly hefty ban for cocaine too didnt he?

I wasn't sure if he was sacked by Chelsea but not banned. Maybe he was banned as well.

Was banned for about 7 months a few years later for some sort of diet pills that could double as stumulants

Alf Veedersane

bucketybuck wrote: »

Stam, Couto, Guardiola and De Boer?

Frankly, its noticeable how far you have to go back for famous cases.

They were just a few but you're right. You could look at that a couple of ways though. They were all for nandrolone. It's not too big a leap to think that an alternative could have been found.

inforfun

bucketybuck wrote: »

Stam, Couto, Guardiola and De Boer?

Frankly, its noticeable how far you have to go back for famous cases.

And the bans they got where during a EC/WC free summer.

Edgar Davids was in there as well iirc,

Alf Veedersane

There have bee na few done for coke in recent times but not really PED related.

The FA have decided to add testing for recreational drugs as well as PEDs. It's interesting that you only really hear about players getting popped for coke and the like.

Flint Fredstone

So it looks like Mamadou Sakho will be facing a ban of some sort. Ignorance to the composition of fat burners doesn't wash with me when others before him have apparently suffered the same. Surely clubs would keep tabs on any supplements or medication their players are taking?
I wonder how many others would have a similar story if they were tested.

The_Kew_Tour

Oh ya "fat burner"

Royale with Cheese

niallo27 wrote: »

Arsenal involved as well it seems, same old arsenal it seems.

Lolololololol

Deserves what he gets

glued

What an idiot. Every player was warned 2/3 years ago about using fat burners. Deserves everything he gets. Incredibly stupid if true, as they can cause massive health problems in the future too.

I was wondering where his sudden little burst of form was coming from...tut tut sako

Hopefully gets the correct punishment

NIMAN

I think its time the clubs were hit with penalties when their players are caught, would make them enforce their own testing and clean up the game. They are rich enough after all.

Imagine if Liverpool were dumped out of the EL now, and Dortmund reinstated. You'd be damn sure the clubs would start to take the problem seriously then.

The_Kew_Tour

I see what you mean NIMAN but in Fairness once club is not involved not lot they can do.

glued

NIMAN wrote: »

I think its time the clubs were hit with penalties when their players are caught, would make them enforce their own testing and clean up the game. They are rich enough after all.

Imagine if Liverpool were dumped out of the EL now, and Dortmund reinstated. You'd be damn sure the clubs would start to take the problem seriously then.

Clubs can't really be responsible for what players take. They would have to monitor them 24/7 in order to ensure they never took any prohibited drugs or supplements which isn't realistic in practice.

NIMAN

NIMAN wrote: »

I think its time the clubs were hit with penalties when their players are caught, would make them enforce their own testing and clean up the game. They are rich enough after all.

Imagine if Liverpool were dumped out of the EL now, and Dortmund reinstated. You'd be damn sure the clubs would start to take the problem seriously then.

Dortmund should be reinstated and Liverpool should be docked their last champions league and have their new stand removed.

NIMAN

They should certainly be doing more, thats for sure.
The amount of money involved in Europes top soccer teams now, they should have their own testers employed doing weekly tests.

RoboKlopp

RoboKlopp wrote: »

Dortmund should be reinstated and Liverpool should be docked their last champions league and have their new stand removed.

Agree 100℅

Osmosis Jones

Just before people start to seriously claim points should be deducted, etc. A club can only be punished if two or more of its players are charged.

AdamD

Don't like the 'idiot' claims, as if he didn't know what he was doing.


Lets call him a cheat, because that's what it actually is.

A_Sober_Paddy

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

I don't but I remember it being on Independent in 2008. I pretty sure September 2008. It was story blown over.

I played with Lansdowne myself for while and it's well known plenty Irish lads were on it.

The amount of lads playing J1 and J2 on stuff is beyond a joke

Rossi IRL

Suggesting banning pool as much as i hate them is laughable.

Its 1 player and he should be banned alone.

If it was a few from the same team then we could talk about banning them.

What a fool though, didnt kolo toure get done for the same thing a few years ago

Seannew1

Silly thing to do. I feel for the lad too as he was playing well recently.

Liam McPoyle

Seannew1 wrote: »

Silly thing to do. I feel for the lad too as he was playing well recently.

Could be the reason why.

Osmosis Jones

Saul T Nutzz wrote: »

Could be the reason why.

Wasn't taking PEDs

Rossi IRL

Rossi IRL wrote: »

Suggesting banning pool as much as i hate them is laughable.

Its 1 player and he should be banned alone.

If it was a few from the same team then we could talk about banning them.

What a fool though, didnt kolo toure get done for the same thing a few years ago

Yep Kolo had the same type of stuff.

You can be sure plenty are taking stiff they shouldn't. Playing with fire.

Drug testing isn't too strict in football so they must think it's worth the risk

A_Sober_Paddy

Open to correction but the only fat burner that will fail you a test is one with ephradine which is illegal in the UK for fat burning purposes

Liam McPoyle

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

Wasn't taking PEDs

He was an absolute liability early in the season, many LFC fans on here calling for his head, he wasn't good enough and what not.

Suddenly he turns into a much better player, in the main at least, no smoke without fire and all that.

Saul T Nutzz

Saul T Nutzz wrote: »

He was an absolute liability early in the season, many LFC fans on here calling for his head, he wasn't good enough and what not.

Suddenly he turns into a much better player, in the main at least, no smoke without fire and all that.

It all makes sense now.

Lovren next up

Saul T Nutzz

Saul T Nutzz wrote: »

He was an absolute liability early in the season, many LFC fans on here calling for his head, he wasn't good enough and what not.

Suddenly he turns into a much better player, in the main at least, no smoke without fire and all that.

His sudden burst in form was questionable to begin with.

Dortmund fans must feel pissed, if he managed to have an impact in the final minute of the Europa league tie because of performance enhancers

Anyway won't mean snot unless it happens to be two or more players

How often are players tested by the clubs? Is it at the clubs discretion or Uefa rule?

Osmosis Jones

Saul T Nutzz wrote: »

He was an absolute liability early in the season, many LFC fans on here calling for his head, he wasn't good enough and what not.

Suddenly he turns into a much better player, in the main at least, no smoke without fire and all that.

You're right actually, we should drug test all players who have changes in form, it's genius.

RoboKlopp

RoboKlopp wrote: »

It all makes sense now.

Lovren next up

Since you bring him up...his form has been terrible but has improved over the last two months...careful what you wish for

glued

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

Wasn't taking PEDs

lol fat burners are PEDs