Doping Scandal

[Kinkladze1871]

The only thing i can think of as to why they would print such garbage is in the hope that Mahrez and the other Leicester players get affected by it and provides some sort of catalyst for a Leicester implosion because you know we can't have a hard working and dedicated team winning the league, It will only fuel other small teams to copy which could lead to their beloved United and Liverpool struggling even more and we can't have that, Martin Tyler would have nothing to orgasm over during his commentary otherwise. It's sort of like the nonsense about 'arry becoming England manager when he was with Spurs which significantly affected their form and Arsenal ended up getting third whilst Spurs had to settle for fourth with Chelsea winning the CL.

[RichardCFC]

The more I read about this story, the more it doesn't seem right.

 

"The Sunday Times says it has no independent evidence Bonar treated the footballers or the other sportsmen.

Bonar told the Sunday Times he treated the athletes for medical reasons and not to enhance their performance. There is no suggestion the substances were illegal."

[RichardCFC]

The journo who tweeted names had better have a good lawyer as the players could sue for libel if he has no evidence.

 

It seems like he's talking rubbish as well as the actual Times article says the Chelsea players were between 2001-2007.

[Blue Exile]

Can't they just test these players?

[Gem]

Sky News Desk just tweeted this:

Doctor at centre of Sunday Times #doping scandal had contract terminated after it was revealed he doesn't have a licence to practise in UK

[Blue Exile]

Sky News Desk just tweeted this:

Doctor at centre of Sunday Times #doping scandal had contract terminated after it was revealed he doesn't have a licence to practise in UK

Lol. Should have kept his gob shut me thinks.

[offside]

Lol. Should have kept his gob shut me thinks.

For him from a career perspective. But if there is doping, then he's doing a good thing by exposing it.

I have a hard time thinking from a rational perspective why someone would make these claims without anything to back them up. Why would anyone do something that guarantees lawsuits? So I'm not yet convinced that these allegations should be dismissed.

[Gem]

Don't know if it is a legit account but the doctor in question has tweeted this:

"The @SundayTimesNews allegations are false and very misleading. I have never had a relationship with any premier football club or player."

"I have never prescribed Androgen therapy for the purpose of performance enhancement.. I treat symptomatic men with low Test levels"

[RichardCFC]

Sky News Newsdesk ?@SkyNewsBreak  2m2 minutes ago

Dr Mark Bonar: the claims in The Sunday Times that he prescribed performance-enhancing drugs to sports stars are "false and very misleading"

[RichardCFC]

Lol. Should have kept his gob shut me thinks.

 

It was an undercover reporter that got him - he wasn't doing it for the attention/money. He's just denied it anyway. This story not going the way the Sunday Times wanted it to really.

[offside]

Can't they just test these players?

They do test players, but dopers are always one step ahead of the testers. To be able to test for a substance you have to first know that the substance exists and then devise an accurate urine or saliva test for it. (You can't make the athletes give blood or hair samples after every game.)

So many exposed dopers got away with it for a long time, and I have no doubt that some are getting away with it now. The problem is finding out who those athletes are.

[offside]

Even if there's nothing to these allegations, I'm starting to get nervous about Conte given his past doping with Juventus. Yes the charges were dismissed, but that was mainly for political reasons. Same with Guardiola's positive test.

With the enormous pressure Conte will face to win, I'm not confident that someone who has previously participated in a large scale doping program wouldn't be willing to do it again, or that he wouldn't turn a blind eye to it the way he failed to report match fixing when he knew about it.

[offside]

Don't know if it is a legit account but the doctor in question has tweeted this:

"The @SundayTimesNews allegations are false and very misleading. I have never had a relationship with any premier football club or player."

"I have never prescribed Androgen therapy for the purpose of performance enhancement.. I treat symptomatic men with low Test levels"

This isn't helping my desire to think there's nothing to it. There is no way all the athletes he treated had low testosterone levels. No way. Hypogonadism is uncommon for men that age; and fatigue, muscle weakness, and osteoporosis are among the most common symptoms.

I'm not using "athletes" synonymously with "footballer" by the way. I'm saying that my hunch is that he really did provide performance enhancing drugs to some sports figures.

Edited April 3, 2016 by offside

[Gem]

This story not going the way the Sunday Times wanted it to really.

Yep, a complete fail. I hope there are some lawsuits being prepared as we speak.

[big blue]

This isn't helping my desire to think there's nothing to it. There is no way all the athletes he treated had low testosterone levels. No way. Hypogonadism is uncommon for men that age; and fatigue, muscle weakness, and osteoporosis are among the most common symptoms.

I'm not using "athletes" synonymously with "footballer" by the way. I'm saying that my hunch is that he really did provide performance enhancing drugs to some sports figures.

He has denied ever treating the players in question though. Surely there would be a paper trail if he has worked for my of the clubs or players in question? I don't see what he has to gain by completely denying he has ever worked with them. It would be pretty easy to prove otherwise.

[Stim]

Journalism is dead.

[The Brit]

Initial lead about mr bonar (who happens to look and sound like a dick) came from an amateur cyclist, who got done for doping and is probably looking for an easy payday...they then filmed Bonar making claims undercover...but he could quite easily have been chatting sh*t, like many people do, to make himself sound bigger/better and get some money for treating someone else...anyway, I'm sure Sunday times will have a follow-up next Sunday so worth waiting to see if any more comes of this...can't dismiss it too easily as they were the ones that brought down Lance Armstrong

[offside]

Initial lead about mr bonar (who happens to look and sound like a dick) came from an amateur cyclist, who got done for doping and is probably looking for an easy payday...they then filmed Bonar making claims undercover...but he could quite easily have been chatting sh*t, like many people do, to make himself sound bigger/better and get some money for treating someone else...anyway, I'm sure Sunday times will have a follow-up next Sunday so worth waiting to see if any more comes of this...can't dismiss it too easily as they were the ones that brought down Lance Armstrong

He might have been exaggerating what he's done for other athletes, but he's clearly done something. If he hadn't, he would have told the cyclist that he refuses to help people cheat, so feck off to another doctor.

It's crazy how doped cycling is that even amateurs are into it.

[Floyd25]

Sounds like an attempt to try and derail Leicester's season, whilst Arsenal's and Chelsea's name gets pulled out of a magic hat, to try and make it less obvious, I'm highly doubting the legitimacy of the story, I don't trust journalists and I don't trust the FA, wouldn't be surprised if they were in on it.

[offside]

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/nov/14/football-arsene-wenger-doping-suspicions

I gotta agree with this article and with Arsene. I suspect that Arsène said it with such conviction because there have been Arsenal players involved. I know for a fact that every week Arsenal players have to submit urine samples. This could give the club the opportunity to test it themselves and make sure the doping players don't play. I imagine other teams do something similar.

Some of the biggest managers in the game are known to have doped. Pep Guardiola tested positive for steroids. Zidane confessed to it and described the systematic doping at Juventus during the time Conte--our Conte--was there.

According to the article, between 2008 and 2013, 68 players (one out of every 13) failed tests at UEFA cup tournaments. That's about two per squad who tested positive. Why was this completely ignored?

In 2013 there were 1248 tests by the FA at all levels. Consider that 736 clubs participated in the FA Cup. That's less than 2 players per club for a whole season. Admittedly, it's not a completely random draw; top tier players have a much higher probability of getting tested.

One trick, as this doctor alluded to (I completely believe that he did something for some athletes, not sure they were footballers) is to claim that the athlete has abnormally low levels of testosterone. Giving anabolic steroids, therefore, is permitted much the same way that Messi got human growth hormone for his malfunctioning pituitary gland.

All these athletes had hypogonadism? Give me a f**king break! Hypogonadism is a condition that is rare (though not unheard of) at that age. Moreover the major symptoms of hypogonadism are fatigue, loss of muscle mass, brittle bones, and large male breasts. Yup, there's a hypogonadism epidemic in football.

Honestly, I'm inclined to believe that Leicester has doped. They are far from the only ones, so they probably have genuinely been the best team this season. They suddenly had a surge of stamina late last season. Those improvements were too sudden to be the result of increased fitness training. Perhaps they feared getting relegated and started it out of desperation.

I'm probably going to get a lot of defensive reactions to this post, but I stand by what I'm saying.

[SydneyChelsea]

The only thing 'scandalous' is the self-justifying witch hunt by WADA and its associates.

In Australia, NRL and AFL players were banned for taking precursor peptides that were not even officially banned by WADA, but we're suspect. In most cases the substances were administered without the player's explicit consent.

It's a media frenzy and a witch hunt which is based on very poor science.

[ShedEnder91]

Honestly, I'm inclined to believe that Leicester has doped. They are far from the only ones, so they probably have genuinely been the best team this season. They suddenly had a surge of stamina late last season. Those improvements were too sudden to be the result of increased fitness training. Perhaps they feared getting relegated and started it out of desperation.

I'm probably going to get a lot of defensive reactions to this post, but I stand by what I'm saying.

 

Whilst you might have a point that doping is going on in football, I think it's absolutely reprehensible to make baseless accusations about Leicester because they've been what? The best team this season? Maybe just maybe they're a well-coached team who are doing the basics well whilst their competitors (who have far more money at stake so would have a greater incentive to cheat) have floundered.

 

Or maybe they just got their transfers (including players like Mahrez and Kante who won't their when they apparently started doping) spot on and have a solid team ethos.

 

What you're broadly saying isn't controversial. There may well be doping throughout the game but the answer to that is solid investigative journalism, not baseless innuendo. It's quite frankly embarrassing.

[offside]

Whilst you might have a point that doping is going on in football, I think it's absolutely reprehensible to make baseless accusations about Leicester because they've been what? The best team this season? Maybe just maybe they're a well-coached team who are doing the basics well whilst their competitors (who have far more money at stake so would have a greater incentive to cheat) have floundered.

Or maybe they just got their transfers (including players like Mahrez and Kante who won't their when they apparently started doping) spot on and have a solid team ethos.

What you're broadly saying isn't controversial. There may well be doping throughout the game but the answer to that is solid investigative journalism, not baseless innuendo. It's quite frankly embarrassing.

I knew there would be responses like this, and you may be completely correct. It's gotten to the point where I'm cynical about any turnaround so dramatic in any sport. It's been shown to be doping too many times for me to not be cynical. That unfortunately certainly leads me to suspect those that are innocent. When I see those players go full throttle at 90 minutes and pop straight back from injury, I can't help be cynical. I've thought the same for players from other teams too. I don't have a reason to think it's systematic and administered from the top like at Juventus a couple decades ago.

I've been involved with the national bodies of two Olympic sports, and my experience there has given me the impression that WADA will gladly ban a little known athlete for innocuous cold medicine in order to show that they're "doing their job", but then they'll turn a blind eye to large scale doping by major athletes. I've seen them allow athletes that test positive for anabolic steroids to submit retroactive letters claiming a medical condition like hypogonadism, and then banning a lesser athlete for an over the counter sleeping medication. I know of two Olympic gold medalists who doped but got away with it. I can't say more and will not mention names. I'm just saying that WADA is either corrupt or lacks common sense, or both.

[ShedEnder91]

I knew there would be responses like this, 

 

 

I have no problem with people asserting that drug use is likely in sports. I just think it's classless to suggest that certain teams have doped when there's no proof for such an accusation beyond 'they're surprisingly good'.

 

One could equally say we doped last year but stopped because 'we're surprisingly bad this year'. It's crass.

 

I've been involved with the national bodies of two Olympic sports, and my experience there has given me the impression that WADA will gladly ban a little known athlete for innocuous cold medicine in order to show that they're "doing their job", but then they'll turn a blind eye to large scale doping by major athletes. I've seen them allow athletes that test positive for anabolic steroids to submit retroactive letters claiming a medical condition like hypogonadism, and then banning a lesser athlete for an over the counter sleeping medication. I know of two Olympic gold medalists who doped but got away with it. I can't say more and will not mention names. I'm just saying that WADA is either corrupt or lacks common sense, or both.

 

Again possible and they may well ban little known athletes but we've also seen world famous athletes like Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Ben Johnson, Justin Gatlin, Tim Montgomery and Tyson Gay banned which is why baseless innuendo (despite you asserting your qualifications) really isn't the way to go about this.

[offside]

Again possible and they may well ban little known athletes but we've also seen world famous athletes like Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Ben Johnson, Justin Gatlin, Tim Montgomery and Tyson Gay banned which is why baseless innuendo (despite you asserting your qualifications) really isn't the way to go about this.

Lance Armstrong and other cyclists are an example of them knowingly letting dopers off. If it weren't for whistle blowers in his personal circle, Lance Armstrong would still not have been exposed despite WADA knowing. Justin Gatlin is actually an example of them banning a little known athlete (he was little known at the time) for an innocuous substance that he had a valid prescription (not a retroactive one) for. I'm somewhat familiar with the case through inside personal experience and interactions.

Many of the athletes that dope are actually victims. Some of them are willing participants, but many of them are lied to by doctors and coaches or even have things slipped into their food at national training camps. These athletes can suffer health problems for the rest of their lives in addition to having their professional careers and reputations ruined.