Doping in Soccer/Football

[Descender]

Frank de Boer, Pep, Edgar Davids, Fernando Couto.
Four (ex-)Barca players, all tested positive in roughly the same time frame, all(?) for nandrolon.
I don't have time to check the chronology of events for each of them.
But at least one pattern seems to be that all four played for Barca.
Potential patterns: there might be some Barca-Ajax-AC Milan link if we consider also Jaap Stam.
All five except Frank de Boer played (and I believe got caught) in Italy, which is not an unimportant detail either.
Anyway, no time to dig into this deeper, but seems to me this is worth looking into renewed.

Yup, good memory.

Davids tested positive before joining Barcelona.

De Boer got caught while playing for Barcelona, while Guardiola and Couto got caught in Italy.

All of them tested positive for nandrolone (and all got ridiculously soft sentences...).

 

[Cyivel]

Good stuff from Wenger.

 

[The Hitch]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...-would-do-almost-anything-to-get-an-edge.html

Is the net closing on football?

Wengers comments didn't even make the front internet page.

 

[Briant_Gumble]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...-would-do-almost-anything-to-get-an-edge.html

?

I like how the article opens "Danny Mills has revealed the extent of the culture of pill popping and needlework in English football" or something like that then goes on to mention Cortisone and anti-inflammatories. More like Mills scratches the surface of the extent of doping in football.

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

I liked this quote from Mills.

I’d come down to breakfast and there’d be a cup of pills with my name on it. I had six in the morning, six at night. I didn’t ask what was in it. You trust what you are given. It was legal.

Of course it was all legal Danny.

 

[AcademyCC]

Joey Barton.... Whilst not the most reliable punter kicking about has said he was only urine tested 3 times during his whole career in English football. Never blood tested.

A complete farce if that is true

 

[nevada]

Didn't xavi admit to being given hgh and the retracted it.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Didn't xavi admit to being given hgh and the retracted it.

Nah, it was blurted out by an Irish radio journalist when covering the great amazing depths of Barcelona's system, and when queried whether it was legal by the show's host, kind of fumbled around for a bit on how it must be otherwise they'd be in trouble. The journalist later apologised, saying he mis-spoke or mis-remembered or something like that.

 

[purcell]

Bribery and match fixing is a much bigg problem in football than drugs.

And drugs are a HUGE problem in football. Match fixing is HUGEx3 and FIFA and UEFA do nothing. This means they will do less than that about drugs.

 

[del1962]

Joey Barton.... Whilst not the most reliable punter kicking about has said he was only urine tested 3 times during his whole career in English football. Never blood tested.

A complete farce if that is true

Joey never won anything though, except fights

 

[buckle]

My own personal favourite was the 2-2 played out in Portugal by Denmark and Sweden in the 2004 Euros. There was no money in it - just devilment. On the BBC, Peter Reid the former England midfielder was livid whilst Peter Schmeichel's defence of the farce was sickening.

In last year's Olympic soccer tournament, Honduras (what have they done to anyone?) were destroyed by the ref to guarantee the Brazilians made the final.

Professional sport serves no other purpose in Western civilization other than to act as a metaphor for its impending collapse. Like the banks, it believes itself to be too big to fail.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Wengers comments didn't even make the front internet page.

t least it is starting to be talked about, which is positive. Football is the goose that laid the golden egg, and up until now it has been allowed to coast along unchallenged. It's perhaps the trickle down from LA and the ACC report in Oz, people are starting to wake up to the problem, which before in most people's minds was limited to cycling and athletics

 

[LutherB]

Rafa Benitez comments:

http://www.london24.com/sport/chels..._to_arsene_wenger_s_doping_proposal_1_1892492

 

[The Hitch]

t least it is starting to be talked about, which is positive.

Wenger might as well have made those comments in his sleep for all the press it got.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Nah, it was blurted out by an Irish radio journalist when covering the great amazing depths of Barcelona's system, and when queried whether it was legal by the show's host, kind of fumbled around for a bit on how it must be otherwise they'd be in trouble. The journalist later apologised, saying he mis-spoke or mis-remembered or something like that.

Liber got his fact wrong for once not an Irish guy....
Graham Hunter Scottish journalist author of Barca - The Making of The Greatest Team In the World.

 

[Descender]

Rafa Benitez comments:

http://www.london24.com/sport/chels..._to_arsene_wenger_s_doping_proposal_1_1892492

Spaniards be Spaniards...

 

[Alphabet]

Rafa Benitez comments:

http://www.london24.com/sport/chels..._to_arsene_wenger_s_doping_proposal_1_1892492

Sir Rafael is an absolutely loathsome man. And not just because of this.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Wenger might as well have made those comments in his sleep for all the press it got.

Well it was one of the lead sports stories on the Guardian website, so front page in a manner of sorts. I think the media are going to be very slow easing themselves into a debate on doping in football. It is the goose that lays the golden egg in terms of circulation etc, and there will be major enertia from the sport itself in tackling it, coming all the way down from Sepp, a person, lest me not forget, who thinks racist language on the pitch is acceptable and should be be handled by a handshake at the end of the game. Disgusting human being

 

[Briant_Gumble]

Sir Rafael is an absolutely loathsome man. And not just because of this.

Not disputing it but what has he done, I am not aware.

Looking at the roundup on Wengers comments, they were featured by every online medium that covers football.

Only the mirror however, decided to call Wenger a "conspiracy theorist" shame on them.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-arsene-wenger-slams-doping-1594892

 

[pascoa341]

Interesting post on a Dutch football web page. Apparently Robin van Persie mentioned he has gained 4kg additional muscle power since joining Manchester United. He says this is not because of extra weight lifting, but that he became super-fit by himself.

http://www.voetbalzone.nl/doc.asp?uid=181982

One has to wonder how it is possible to gain 4kg of muscle in half a year, without additional weight lifting. If true this seems more than a little bit dodgy to me. What is Man United doing that Arsenal is not? Or alternatively what has van Persie started doing?

 

[LaPlagne87]

Interesting post on a Dutch football web page. Apparently Robin van Persie mentioned he has gained 4kg additional muscle power since joining Manchester United. He says this is not because of extra weight lifting, but that he became super-fit by himself.

http://www.voetbalzone.nl/doc.asp?uid=181982

One has to wonder how it is possible to gain 4kg of muscle in half a year, without additional weight lifting. If true this seems more than a little bit dodgy to me. What is Man United doing that Arsenal is not? Or alternatively what has van Persie started doing?

If I was to defend RVP here, I would say that this is probably the longest I ever remember him not being injured for and, also, he's 29 now....I put on a couple of kilos of muscle when I physically matured between the age of 27-30 from nothing more than a lot of running and a bit of cycling (I'm no adonis but I remember looking in the mirror a couple of years ago and thinking jaysis, that's not a bad set of shoulders I have now And I did no weights, just running) . Could explain it.

 

[Cyivel]

Also he'd been at the same club for years, his new club might have a completely different emphasis on physical training, who knows.

 

[The Hitch]

Looking at the roundup on Wengers comments, they were featured by every online medium that covers football.

Some guy winning a stage of Paris Nice also makes every newspaper in the world. They just copy the 50 word AP piece and all stuff it into their cycling archives.

 

[Alphabet]

Is it possible that Arsenal are a clean club? Their players for some time now have been notoriously injury prone (Rosicky, Fabregas and van Persie for instance),and usually crack in the final third of the season (not quite as common, but they threw away a shot at winning the Premier League back in 2007/08 with a late season collapse).

If so, then big (albeit grudging) respect for Wenger and the club for staying fairly competitive in a very dirty world.

 

[sniper]

Is it possible that Arsenal are a clean club? Their players for some time now have been notoriously injury prone (Rosicky, Fabregas and van Persie for instance),and usually crack in the final third of the season (not quite as common, but they threw away a shot at winning the Premier League back in 2007/08 with a late season collapse).

If so, then big (albeit grudging) respect for Wenger and the club for staying fairly competitive in a very dirty world.

touré tested positive at city after a move from arsenal.
but that doesn't conclusively show anything either way, i assume.

i'm hard pressed though to think arsenal are clean.
i think their results correspond more or less to their budget (but I could be wrong)