Doping in Soccer/Football

[The Hitch]

11 Juve players were doping? I remember when i read about the investigation into why la signora vecchia had all that product they all swore on their moms lives that they never took drugs.

 

[iejeecee]

Any of our Dutch posters watch the show tonight about the doping by Juventus against Ajax in the Champions League final in 1996?

Raymond Verheijen, the Dutch coach who was Gary Speed's assistant at Wales, has called on UEFA to give the trophy to Ajax now.

There is basically conclusive scientific evidence that Juventus doped their players up to their eyeballs in the 90's.

A police raid confiscated a large number of medical documents, among which were blood tests conducted by Juventus own doctors in the period from 1994 to 1998.

They showed high spikes in hemoglobin values occurring at several points during the season (e.g. right before the champions league final in 1996 vs ajax). These could not be explained as natural, since it occurred in too many players at the same times/dates.

A trial happened, but nobody was punished. One of the reasons given was that nobody had ever tested positive for anything. Which isn't very surprising since the doping lab (situated in Rome) assigned to test footballers, either (if you want to believe them) only tested 30% of the samples they received or (if you want to believe the general consensus) didn't test samples from footballers on anything at all (the lab was later closed for two years for fraudulent practices...)

Of course the former Ajax players interviewed reacted angrily, surprised & hurt to this "shocking news".

 

[iejeecee]

Oh and just for fun, some of the notable players that played for Juventus during that period.

Alessandro Del Piero
Ganluca Vialli
Didier Deschamps
Zinedine Zidane
Christian Vieri

Coached by Marchello Lippi

 

[gooner]

Lots of it was known but this time we got the reaction of some of the Ajax players.

I am not going to complain that it keeps the issue of doping in football in the public domain because it's ignorance to it currently is there for everyone to see.

And I think we now know why Deschamps testimony at the French Senate hearing was behind closed doors.

We heard Arsene Wenger say players signed from abroad showed signs of EPO use. You can't help but think of the Henry signing from Juventus.

 

[the sceptic]

So this pretty much proves that they were doping. Why cant i find anything about this in the mainstream media?

 

[gooner]

So this pretty much proves that they were doping. Why cant i find anything about this in the mainstream media?

Knowing the football media it will be just a drop in the ocean.

 

[the sceptic]

Yeah but still i would think this is pretty big news. So many star players. Id think that the general public has no clue that anyone on juventus were doping.

 

[gooner]

Yeah but still i would think this is pretty big news. So many star players. Id think that the general public has no clue that anyone on juventus were doping.

You would think that but not just the media. I would include most football fans. Look at the eulogising of Pep when he left Barca where you would never have thought he had a positive hanging over him from his career.

Just recently with Real Sociedad. I was watching the Spanish football round-up on Sky like I do most weeks and Guillem Balague and Graham Hunter were guests. Scott Minto( ex-Chelsea, W.Ham and Benfica) was the presenter and just as they were going to the ads he said that even though they were getting a lot of requests about it, they weren't going to address it now but would still get tabs on it if anything new comes out. Complete ignorance to it and what was even more irritating is that John Toshack(former Sociedad manager) who is also a regular contributor to this programme was never asked about it either as far as I am aware of.

 

[Alphabet]

You won't see mainstream coverage of doping in football because media companies exist to sell their product, not tell the facts. The public don't want to hear about doping in football, that's something reserved for those 'dirty cheating cyclists'. Until the public demand information, media organisations aren't going to waste time during newscasts or inches in newspapers that could be used to do more lucrative things- such as claim diving to be the greatest scourge football faces .

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Lots of it was known but this time we got the reaction of some of the Ajax players.

I am not going to complain that it keeps the issue of doping in football in the public domain because it's ignorance to it currently is there for everyone to see.

And I think we now know why Deschamps testimony at the French Senate hearing was behind closed doors.

We heard Arsene Wenger say players signed from abroad showed signs of EPO use. You can't help but think of the Henry signing from Juventus.

And yet he got better at Arsenal!

I was thinking Reyes, Fàbregas, Petit, Henry, Pirès, all suspect on that front. Wouldn't trust any of the teams they came from at the time they arrived at Highbury.

 

[gooner]

And yet he got better at Arsenal!

I was thinking Reyes, Fàbregas, Petit, Henry, Pirès, all suspect on that front. Wouldn't trust any of the teams they came from at the time they arrived at Highbury.

Just on Fabregas, he arrived just past his 16th birthday and I couldn't see Barca doing it that early with the young players at La Masia.

Henry being already mentioned, but Pires would definitely be the dodgiest of the rest. Tony Cascarino spoke about injections he was given at Marseille in his autobiography(ghost wriiten by Kimmage) saying he didn't know the substances he was given. Chris Waddle also touched on this before as well. There was another player I can't remember his name from around the European Cup win who went even further and accused the club of running a systematic doping programme. There is definitely a huge cloud over them.

 

[iejeecee]

And yet he got better at Arsenal!

I was thinking Reyes, Fàbregas, Petit, Henry, Pirès, all suspect on that front. Wouldn't trust any of the teams they came from at the time they arrived at Highbury.

You have to wonder how these things work in football. With players being transferred between different clubs and/or playing for their national teams, they have to deal with different medical teams regularly.

Nobody benefits from a drop in a players performance (the player himself least of all), so the incentive to keep doping during these transitions is very high. So do they just walk up to their new medical team and say at my former club I was taking illegal products X,Y & Z could we please continue this practice? Or do they start buying these products/doctors privately to continue their doping in secret.

Certainly a lot of juventus players from that era who have moved on to different clubs/national teams have shown no drop in performance.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

Lots of it was known but this time we got the reaction of some of the Ajax players.

Finidi George on Gianluca Pessotto: NOT NORMAL.
Wonder what Musampa was thinking of Torricelli...

Coke, epo, bentelan.

Ajax were not on full strength that match, Overmars out for instance, but Juventus were ridiculous. I liked their pressing game but they somehow were able to do it for 120 minutes. Not normal.

http://www.ergogenics.org/juventus2.html

Good to know Juve were the only ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfETDptvyMM

 

[gooner]

Finidi George on Gianluca Pessotto: NOT NORMAL.
Wonder what Musampa was thinking of Torricelli...

Coke, epo, bentelan.

Ajax were not on full strength that match, Overmars out for instance, but Juventus were ridiculous. I liked their pressing game but they somehow were able to do it for 120 minutes. Not normal.

http://www.ergogenics.org/juventus2.html

Good to know Juve were the only ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfETDptvyMM

The Cannavaro one was Neoton(what we are led to believe). That's not banned as far as I know. Nevertheless Oscar Pereiro has flagged this up to show the inconsistency in the way cyclists and footballers are judged differently.

And anyway just read Matias Almeyda's recent book where he said there was doping going on at Parma.

 

[Franklin]

What's not mentioned is that Ajax themselves might not be squeaky clean. Of course, full on team wide blooddoping seems absent.

 

[Fearless Greg Lemond]

http://vorige.nrc.nl/dossiers/doping/nieuws_2004/article1629084.ece

Moreno Torricelli ran the top of his lungs at the field of Stadio Olimpico in Rome. In the final of the Champions League in 1996, the long-haired Italian covered the entire right side of the team of Juventus, which was the title holders Ajax boss, especially physically. Torricelli ran 120 minutes (including overtime) from corner flag to corner flag. Juventus won the finals after a penalty shootout, which Ajax Edgar Davids and Sonny Silooy had missed. Their teammate Marc Overmars later sighed: 'Whenever you passed an Italian there was always another one to cover.''

A few years after his ultimate Coopertest Torricelli told the court in Turin that he had asked the team doctor of Juve to inject him straight after the match to recover quickly, in the dressing room; ''I was so tired that I immediately had to do it'' said the player with the lung capacity of a horse. The judge cried out ''Unbelievable. Even a junior knows you would not do that.''

According to expert witnesses in the doping process only epo can explain the high hematocrit in the blood of Del Piero, Didier Deschamps and Angelo Di Livio. In 1996 the value of Del Piero increased to 48.4 percent. Deschamps' rose in 1995 to 51.9 percent and 51.2 percent for Di Livio. The same players used excessive amounts of iron that can help mask the use of EPO.

What's not mentioned is that Ajax themselves might not be squeaky clean. Of course, full on team wide blooddoping seems absent.

Do tell.

 

[Briant_Gumble]

And yet he got better at Arsenal!

I was thinking Reyes, Fàbregas, Petit, Henry, Pirès, all suspect on that front. Wouldn't trust any of the teams they came from at the time they arrived at Highbury.

The change from Juve to Arsenal honestly looked a guy coming off steroids. He looked considerably bigger at Juve.

However, it's difficult to imagine a guy giving up doping and improving his performance. Maybe he switched it up and used more EPO/stimulants and less anabolics coupled with playing in a system catered towards his strengths.

 

[Briant_Gumble]

Any of our Dutch posters watch the show tonight about the doping by Juventus against Ajax in the Champions League final in 1996?

Raymond Verheijen, the Dutch coach who was Gary Speed's assistant at Wales, has called on UEFA to give the trophy to Ajax now.

These comments have flied under the radar far more than they should have.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

With one game remaining in La Liga, here's Athletic Club's full testing history for season 2012-13. Plus marks for the openness and clarity on who's been tested and when, and it gives us a bit of insight into how testing works in football.

There have been 6 rounds of testing for Athletic players this season, each with two players selected apparently at random. The first two rounds of tests came two weeks apart, in late August and early September. An approach that might suggest regular testing throughout the season, however then there are no tests until December. Then, after another month off, two sets of testing within a week in late January, but then the doping chaperones have not knocked on the dressing room door at San Mamés for a pretty astounding four months, from January 27th to May 18th.

Nine players were tested in all, three of whom (Raúl Fernández, Carlos Gurpegui and Ander Iturraspe) were tested twice. Interesting that the seemingly random selections included testing somebody who's already tested positive (Gurpegui) more than anyone else. The other six players tested were Mikel San José, Óscar de Marcos, Fernando Llorente, Aritz Aduriz, Igor Martínez and Jonas Ramalho. This means that Gorka Iraizoz (41 appearances in 2012-13), Jon Aurtenetxe (28), Ibai Gómez (45), Markel Susaeta (43), Iker Muniain (43), Ander Herrera (34), Andoni Iraola (41) and Borja Ekiza (27) played the full season without a test.

 

[del1962]

I can think of 4 spanish players that my team (Newcastle) have signed from Spain and 3 have been complete flops, Marcelinho, Luque and Xisco.

 

[nevada]

With one game remaining in La Liga, here's Athletic Club's full testing history for season 2012-13. Plus marks for the openness and clarity on who's been tested and when, and it gives us a bit of insight into how testing works in football.

There have been 6 rounds of testing for Athletic players this season, each with two players selected apparently at random. The first two rounds of tests came two weeks apart, in late August and early September. An approach that might suggest regular testing throughout the season, however then there are no tests until December. Then, after another month off, two sets of testing within a week in late January, but then the doping chaperones have not knocked on the dressing room door at San Mamés for a pretty astounding four months, from January 27th to May 18th.

Nine players were tested in all, three of whom (Raúl Fernández, Carlos Gurpegui and Ander Iturraspe) were tested twice. Interesting that the seemingly random selections included testing somebody who's already tested positive (Gurpegui) more than anyone else. The other six players tested were Mikel San José, Óscar de Marcos, Fernando Llorente, Aritz Aduriz, Igor Martínez and Jonas Ramalho. This means that Gorka Iraizoz (41 appearances in 2012-13), Jon Aurtenetxe (28), Ibai Gómez (45), Markel Susaeta (43), Iker Muniain (43), Ander Herrera (34), Andoni Iraola (41) and Borja Ekiza (27) played the full season without a test.

Any idea what they're tested for ?

 

[Spencer the Half Wit]

I can think of 4 spanish players that my team (Newcastle) have signed from Spain and 3 have been complete flops, Marcelinho, Luque and Xisco.

Not forgetting Ignacio Gonzalez, who was the final straw for Keegan. Have you noticed how the new French signings had an immediate impact and then had a dip in form? Coming off a program?

 

[SeriousSam]

Yeah, they probably stopped the ball control vector doping.

 

[sniper]

Bernd Schuster saying he doesn't have a problem with doping as long as it's for recovery.
basically admitting it's business as usual in present day football.
also admitting that he, as a player, got different 'things' administered into his body prior to matches. players would simply let the docs do their work without asking.

http://de.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/liga-schuster-hat-kein-problem-doping-103006779.html

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Bernd Schuster saying he doesn't have a problem with doping as long as it's for recovery.
basically admitting it's business as usual in present day football.
also admitting that he, as a player, got different 'things' administered into his body prior to matches. players would simply let the docs do their work without asking.

http://de.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/liga-schuster-hat-kein-problem-doping-103006779.html

Whos got time to translate the whole article or summary will do? Thank you.

Regards.
the fonz.