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TeamSkyFans said:that was incredible crap. 45 minutes of my life i will never get back (didnt bother watching the last 15 minutes)
Dr. Maserati said:It actually picked up as it went on - and for soccer, I thought it was a pretty significant piece.
A lot of what was aired is hardly a surprise to anyone here, indeed we mentioned many of the points already including their 'whistle-blower' Richard Sadlier.
What will be most interesting and revealing is how the FA and the individual clubs react to the programme.
I expect it to be along the same lines as cycling - anyone who spoke out is bitter, the tests work and they were protecting the identities of the athletes as there is no wrongdoing, yada yada.
B_Ugli said:In any event you can hardly class footballers as highly tuned athletes which makes performance enhancing in football all the more laughable. Its a bit like performance enhancing a pot bellied pig. You only have to see them all dead on their feet when a match goes to extra time to realise just how unfit the average footballer is.
That really disappoints me (and shows how Wenger has reacted to difficult times), considering he had previously been one of the most vocal about drugs in football - in 2004 he announced that he felt some clubs were doping players with EPO and that medical tests carried out on some new Arsenal signings carried out those hallmarks. EPO was not tested for in football at the time. He also complained at one point about the lack of testing, saying he had some players who had been on his squad for 5 years and not been drug tested once.luckyboy said:Just came across this article (May 2011) while searching for whatever Arsene Wenger said about doping - http://joe.ie/football/football-news/arsene-wenger-dismisses-paul-mersons-doping-claims-0012200-1
In it he says..
20 controls in a squad of what, 40? every year..
It's not just Ronaldo. How many games do the top teams win in the last ten minutes of the game? Weaker teams can often hold on for 80 minutes but get crushed in the last 10. Who were the four teams strongly linked to Puerto? Real, Barcelona, was it Sevilla and Betis or Valencia and Betis? If Valencia, they were pretty big for a few years before that...Parrulo said:i am honestly surprised how people haven't discussed how stronger then every1 else cristiano ronaldo is at the end of a game. when i saw this thread i thought people would be all over him like nadal on the tennis thread.
Yes, of course it's an assumption, but what Sadler points out is the naïveté of the sportsman in the action. He just took it because the club told him to. Because of the effects it had he makes the assumption that it was probably banned. It may have been above board, but what's to say that then at other clubs other people similarly happy to just take what they're given at clubs weren't being given banned things? He just highlights the "just do what you're told and don't think too much about it" approach. Just like Jesús Hernández said about the "heated massage pads" that turned out to be synthetic testosterone he was given at Liberty Seguros. The athlete just goes with the flow and doesn't think too hard about it.euanli said:Problem with that article is that he doesn't know what he was taking and we don't know what he was taking. Both he and we end up assuming that everything he was doing was banned and the club were doing it knowingly. Its a dangerous assumption to make really.
My apologies that mentioning Sadlier twice has upset you so much - I was thinking of using some other players confessions like Wayne Rooney David Beckham, guy with long hair at Liverpool or Ferdinand Rio, but then I remembered none of them have actually commented on anything.The Hitch said:I dont know why you keep mentioning and mentioning Sadlier expecting people to be impressed. If drugs in football is limited to good innocent footballers getting their food spiked unknowingly by evil non-footballers, then i will personally apologize personally to every footballer ever accused.
I dont care if coaches are giving players little add ons to their food without the good old players knowing, which is how sadlier presents it.
What we are talking about is players spending millions to transfuse blood and going on complicated lengthy doping programs.
the kind of things which Operation Puerto proves exist and which "pundit" sadlier has never breathed word one about.
Actually Sadlier admitted he was using a a banned substance for a year until his Doc realized that it was on the banned list.euanli said:<snipped for brevity>
There is a danger from his story that it infers that there is intentional PED use, rather than the reality which is the potential use of PEDs. I think that distracts from the real issue with is the sporting bodies are either unable, unwilling or totally incompetent in their testing of footballers. Another aspect we learnt is that the FA is willing and capable of making tests disappear.
These two aspects are the ones that hurt anti doping. And they are also all too similar to what we see with the UCI.
euanli said:You are quite ignorant to the requirements of top flight football. If footballers are so unfit and unable to complete at the end of 90 minutes then surely that is the case for performance enhancing drugs and highly tuned athletes. The team who is still running about at 85 minutes like it was 5 minutes into the game has a deadly advantage. Much like if every team charges down for the Tour but yours charges up and you ride your blue train to victory.
Footbal is like repeated running the 100 meters for 90 minutes with some breaks in between, not walking about a park for an equal amount of time. To do that and not have the muscle fatigue to still perform accurate passes and shots? Yeah no benefit of PEDs in there at all.
B_Ugli said:Not really, in my opinion "Professional" Footballers are about as unprofessional as you can get in terms of Athletes. This goes for their fitness levels, and conduct on and off the pitch. You wouldnt see an "athlete" in any other sport going on a drink (and whatever else) bender the night before a big event. They are barely fit to last the length of the match which I would say makes them unfit. A 3rd category cyclist is fitter than a typical premiership footballer - and probably more professional in his approach.
This is why PEDs in Football is so laughable as footballers are nowhere near 100% fitness before they take PEDs.
Dr. Maserati said:My apologies that mentioning Sadlier twice has upset you so much - I was thinking of using some other players confessions like Wayne Rooney David Beckham, guy with long hair at Liverpool or Ferdinand Rio, but then I remembered none of them have actually commented on anything.
Perhaps the reason Sadlier isn't able to highlight the "millions" he spent on "going on complicated lengthy doping programs" is because he spent his career at world-beaters Millwall.
And perhaps the reason he doesn't have much to say on Puerto and how it effected his career is because he had already retired by 2006?
The Hitch said:Yes, in 2 posts you try to hype him up as a major piece of the puzzle, where in reality, he fits in quite well with the existing order and his comments dont challenge too much the idea that footballers would not go on major doping programs. Besides there have been other threads before.
I never said Sadlier should have known about Operation Puerto or EPO, rather that he wasnt a major whistleblower.
I dont consider the queen of england to be a major whistleblower either. When i say that am I suggesting that she should know about epo OP etc, or am i just making the simple point that she has not addressed those issues, ergo is not a major whistleblower?
B_Ugli said:Not really, in my opinion "Professional" Footballers are about as unprofessional as you can get in terms of Athletes. This goes for their fitness levels, and conduct on and off the pitch. You wouldnt see an "athlete" in any other sport going on a drink (and whatever else) bender the night before a big event. They are barely fit to last the length of the match which I would say makes them unfit. A 3rd category cyclist is fitter than a typical premiership footballer - and probably more professional in his approach.
This is why PEDs in Football is so laughable as footballers are nowhere near 100% fitness before they take PEDs.
Dr. Maserati said:Actually Sadlier admitted he was using a a banned substance for a year until his Doc realized that it was on the banned list.
It shows that there was little concern over the testing and that even small clubs with limited budgets were engaged in the murky world of enhancement where there is a fine line between what is or is not legal.
euanli said:<snipped for brevity>
I know he has anecdotal evidence that he was taking a banned substance however that shows no intention to cheat the rules which is the way it sounds when he and dispatches tell it. It turns the player and the club into the bad guy where in this case it is the system of testing (and the doctors responsibility) that failed. I believe the telling of it distracts from this issue.
Dr. Maserati said:Your problem is that you are looking at this through cycling and looking for 'major whistleblowers' that provides great detail - when in effect there have been very few that have done that.
No I am not a mind reader, but I am reading your posts (what you volunteer to write) and I would have no hesitation in apologizing in your viewpoint is not what I assume.The Hitch said:There you go with your attempted mind reading again. Not the first time you try telling me what i think.
Unfortunately as always, your disadvantage is that you cant read my mind.
My problem is not that i look at it through cycling. I dont. I have no idea where you get that idea from Dr Phil
My problem is that I don't care if players are unknowingly taking steroids.
I want players found transfusing blood, found paying sums to doctors, found claiming long lost twins were responsible for testorone boosts.
Frank Lebouf did a million times more for the antidoping movement in football when he said he was worried footballers would turn to doping, and that he knew some that already had, than someone saying coaches are spiking players.
Especially at a minor team where it can be dismissed as some less talented clubs trying to cheat - the story usually used.
Of course the fact that Sadlier gets work as a football pundit, whereas Lebouf got told to shut the **** up, helps demonstrate this.
The Hitch said:There you go with your attempted mind reading again. Not the first time you try telling me what i think.
Unfortunately as always, your disadvantage is that you cant read my mind.
My problem is not that i look at it through cycling. I dont. I have no idea where you get that idea from Dr Phil
My problem is that I don't care if players are unknowingly taking steroids.
I want players found transfusing blood, found paying sums to doctors, found claiming long lost twins were responsible for testorone boosts.
Frank Lebouf did a million times more for the antidoping movement in football when he said he was worried footballers would turn to doping, and that he knew some that already had, than someone saying coaches are spiking players.
Especially at a minor team where it can be dismissed as some less talented clubs trying to cheat - the story usually used.
Of course the fact that Sadlier gets work as a football pundit, whereas Lebouf got told to shut the **** up, helps demonstrate this.
Dr. Maserati said:No I am not a mind reader, but I am reading your posts (what you volunteer to write) and I would have no hesitation in apologizing in your viewpoint is not what I assume.
However, if you are not looking at this through a cycling viewpoint then why do you want football to have the exact same doping issues that cycling has before you are impressed?
As for Sadlier - he became a 'pundit' (in Ireland) well before he admitted what went on at Millwall.
euanli said:I think this post highlights again your lack of knowledge about football over English/Scottish domestic players and tabloid stories. There are reasons why Spanish/Italians players tend to have longer careers.