Sunday Times - 150 sportsman (inc footballers) doping scandal

[JerryGarcia]

I really cannot believe most of these posts. No one said anything before everyone and his dog states that they always suspected, always thought something was wrong Yada Yada Yada .

Your views would be that more credible if you had spouted it before these allegations, but no, every one is jumping on this particular bandwagon.

I believe Leicester are on top on merit and although I wish we could overtake them and win the title, I am not as desperate to win on default because of some trumped up allegation that are spoiling the their good name.

If it turns out there is a case to answer to then fair enough but at the moment it is all circumstantial.

I don't know if there's any truth to the claims and I believe they should be proved guilty before we go off the deep end, but to say nobody has mentioned it before is just wrong. I've seen a fair few people mention it on here and they were all ridiculed for it and called sore losers.

 

[Spurger King]

I really cannot believe most of these posts. No one said anything before everyone and his dog states that they always suspected, always thought something was wrong Yada Yada Yada .

Your views would be that more credible if you had spouted it before these allegations, but no, every one is jumping on this particular bandwagon.

I believe Leicester are on top on merit and although I wish we could overtake them and win the title, I am not as desperate to win on default because of some trumped up allegation that are spoiling the their good name.

If it turns out there is a case to answer to then fair enough but at the moment it is all circumstantial.

Loads of people have previously mentioned the 'roids thing in relation to Leicester. Literally loads.

It was largely mentioned tongue in cheek, but people have been talking directly about it for months. There have been regular comments about how they look like they're on something. It's the main reason they were mentioned on here before any specific allegations were made. It's the fact that people had already been speculating about it before they were actually accused that lends such speculation a degree of legitimacy.

If I could be arsed I'd trawl through the site to find all the previous comments I've seen about them being doped up. I can't, but believe me, they exist.

 

[tttcowan]

Some of this has been said in the race to the title section. But EPO is very hard to test for and requires continuous testing over a prolonged period and if used in smaller doses is undetectable by those tests. I think Panorama did something on it but basically you can get around the "biological passport" system in place for athletics and cycling. Which I imagine is more stringent than whatever tests the PL do.

Furthermore, if you think about it, the gains you would get in a team sport is potentially greater than that of the individual sports. If you get a 1-3% gain in fitness 10 v 10 rather than 1 v 1 that gain is magnified. The ability for a player to beat his opposite number and then go on to be involved in the next passage of play due to this increased fitness where his team mate is also experiencing the same advantage over his opposite number. Well then the advantage is increased even more so.

Leicester could be just that, a fairy tale come true. Or the most dubious aspect of their rise, their sudden seemingly increased levels fitness occurring in the space of a month in April 2015, could be down to something more sinister. And if that were the case I see know reason why the players would have to know about it either.

I don't know, I don't even think it'd be possible to find out barring a cock up from whoever would be orchestrating such a thing... It is odd though. And you can't help but think about some other sports when the seemingly impossible has been achieved and it has turned out to be down to doping.

Personally I'd just like a legitimate explanation from Leicester as to how on earth they got these fitness levels so high. And across the board. Because we've tried to do the same level of running as they do and we've had burnouts, players shipped out who couldn't hack it, crazy training regimes, the works. And they apparently give their players 2 days off a week, more than any other club, the complete opposite to what we do. Perhaps it's those rest days that allow them to perform the way the do... I don't know. But it is... weird.

edit :
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/dec/23/leicester-city-claudio-ranieri-forrest-gump

Well there's my answer. Claudio says the reason why Leicester have such high stamina levels is because their like Forest Gump... He doesn't seem to know either does he. It's just... Weird.

 

[beats1]

Im sorry but the Premier League would never allow a club to be found guilty of doping nor would the FA imo

The premier league is currently the biggest league in the world and arguably the biggest footballing product

Were a scandal to hit that product it would affect the reputation of that product, they would try to stop it

Look at Italy, after their match fixing scandal, Serie A became a joke and nobody took it serious

Now with the Premier League being a Billion dollar league, there would be far too many companies and corporations that would it would affect like the ITV digital saga(but in reverse)

It would be much better for these companies to throw someone under the bus and have the guy who made the claims then lie about what happened

 

[fridgemagnet]

As much as this might be complete bollocks from the Doctor, it's hard to deny that players from Leicester are showing fitness and injury recovery atypical for what we're told they do for fitness work. Ranieri bragged about rest and recuperation being the secret to their endless energy but they'd still tire at the end of games - except this Leicester team does not. We can't even point towards it being an example of them fielding a youthful team, because most of their top performers are either nearing 30 or over.

Then we have their injury recovery, which completely flies in the face of normal recovery times, I wouldn't be surprised if HGH was involved somewhere for that because no-one should be playing football professionally within 2 weeks of a groin operation.

HGH is very hard to detect from my understanding as it's half-life for being detectable is hours not days. Also i'm assuming players have to give piss/blood and hair follicle samples when they're picked at random if football is covered by WADA
https://www.wada-ama.org/en/who-we-are

From what i've understood from following MMA athletes can see who has been tested and how often as the results are published publicly.

 

[Stamford]

I really cannot believe most of these posts. No one said anything before everyone and his dog states that they always suspected, always thought something was wrong Yada Yada Yada .

Your views would be that more credible if you had spouted it before these allegations, but no, every one is jumping on this particular bandwagon.

I believe Leicester are on top on merit and although I wish we could overtake them and win the title, I am not as desperate to win it on default because of some trumped up allegation that are spoiling their good name.

If it turns out there is a case to answer to then fair enough but at the moment it is all circumstantial. No need to be spiteful

Except loads of people mentioned it before and this is out it only adds credence to those claims

 

[E.L.Strict]

I don't think the article really supports the theory of Leicester doping this season.

However in the interests of talking about it anyway, how about this as an outlandish conspiracy theory...?

Mapei is a family owned Italian industrial materials and chemical company with revenues of over a billion Euros. Georgio Squinzi, the CEO, is adamantly anti-doping. Sponsoring a cycling team was the obvious choice for some reason, and that team being outed as systematic dopers by ARD (source of yesterday's ST article) the obvious outcome. At this point it becomes evident that what the Mapei company needs to complement their industrial building materials and chemicals operation, is a sports research center, especially one with a dedicated Human Performance Lab.

In 2012 Mapei Sport decide to focus on football instead of cycling, specifically with Sassuolo, Juventus and Monaco. LINK (Bad translation alert: ) "The question at this point is lawful: it is no coincidence that the three "customers" of Castellanza laboratories are first in their respective leagues?" At this point you are probably expecting me to say that Leicester have connections with the Mapei Sport Research center, and you would be astute for thinking so, because they do. Is the question at this point, again, lawful?

Now onto the really straw-fumbling part of the conspiracy theory, being that Georgio Squinzi, CEO of Mapei and Chairman of Sassuolo is actually a character comparable to Gus Fring from Breaking Bad. Mapei play the role of Los Pollos Hermanos. Squinzi uses Mapei's distribution chains to meticulously disseminate PEDs, such as HGH, to co-operative athletes around the world, by hiding them inside seemingly harmless tubs of industrial adhesive that look like this:



But what would a conspiracy theory be without a shocking twist at the end?

Mapei's head office in the UK is in..... the West Midlands. Dun..Dun...DUNNNNN!

This makes Ranieri the Walter White of the story. The true genius. Every week he comes out on Match of the Day putting on a funny voice, speaking in broken English and doing his best impression of a 90-year old Italian woman with dementia and parkinsons. This is just to fool us. Behind the scenes his true persona as a hardened, mafia style crime lord is revealed. Huth and Morgan talking too loudly? Bitchslapped. Vardy refusing to take his daily dose of anti-Gremlin hormones? Broken fingers. Schmeichel thinks he's as good as his dad? Wife doesn't come home that night.

Think this is crazy? That's exactly what Ranieri would dope you to think.

 

[tttcowan]

While it's funny to joke and all. The question remains, how do you go from being the unfittest side in the league to the 2nd fittest in less than a month(April 2015 and pre Ranieri). At the tail end of the season where no discernible changes to training or anything else occur. It's odd. And if it is legit I'd just like to know what it is they did so we could do it.

 

[Everlasting Seconds]

Why is it so hard for people to accept that teams might be as fit as us. We are arguably the fittest team in the league but you aren't saying we are doped up! Get a grip people.

I can see why people would speculate, can't you? Leicester's ... fortune goes beyond this season. In effect, their results have been really good for 1,5 seasons, with a squad of 1 star player and the rest of Championship quality. All teams fluctuate, and most teams can go on an unnatural strong run for a part of a season. But when a less than famous club goes on a run for an unnaturally long time, have can you expect people not to question it?

On a general note, such cheating is a part of football. Back in 2002 there was a rather large scandal involving a few big names of that time. One player said something along the lines of "to think that it doesn't happen in football, it's foolish, especially related to recovering form injuries".

 

[Sir Henry]

Problem is, everyone apart from us wants a Lester title (Yeah I did write Lester, get over it). There was even a 1-0 to the champions headline from Sky Sports yesterday. God forbid should any team, anyone or anything get in the way of this.

 

[Rob]

So we still just stick to blood spinning? (while it's legal)

 

[vavaboom]

The only performance enhancing drugs related story that I can remember in football was the Kolo Toure episode a few years back. Although he claimed it wasn't doping and that he was taking his wife's medication or something.

i can understand people's suspicions but I suppose nearly every minute of football they have played has been recorded so I don't know if they are any physical signs of doping to the trained eye?

 

[Grey Fox]

Nothing will happen here folks,

1} These sort of enquiries take months if not years to come to conclusions.
2) If a player is found to be guilty then the club will distance themselves from him quicker than a greyhound on speed. So all the club will get is a little slap.
3) This guy will not name anyone because of the fear of having his arse sued
4) The FA and the Premiership can not allow this to become any bigger because of the TV rights and sponsorship deals, so they will do their best to quash it.
5) This really is a non story, because everyone in the game knows this happens and it happens because the testing is virtually non existent and drugs used are almost undetectable after a game

 

[zepstar]

Just popped in to see if anybody has any straws I can clutch?

 

[beats1]

So we still just stick to blood spinning? (while it's legal)

Yea while its legal, the issue with blood spinning is two fold

Does it actual do anything in regards to athletes injury healing process?

Does it enhance performance?

Blood spinning was banned in 2010 and WADA investigated mourinho for it as he used at Chelsea (which could be related to this as this took place in 2005)

However after a year, the ban was lifted as there wasnt much known about it. Its a medical procedure and the clinical trials didnt extends to athletes to measure the effect. So based on that WADA and the fact there isn't much research on it, they had no choice to lift the ban. Not to mention it wasnt manipulating the persons blood but rather just transferring it to the place he is injured

That may change after more research is done in to it or perhaps the research will tell that it does make a difference to sport injuries at all

 

[tttcowan]

So we still just stick to blood spinning? (while it's legal)

Well blood spinning is used for treating injuries. It's got no performance enhancing benefit other than speeding up recovery times but is frowned upon mainly I believe because it's got the word "blood" in it's name. And the idea of taking blood, processing it, then injecting it back in doesn't fall into the usual paradigms of what people believe "treatment" should entail. But we're not getting any advantage from it on the field other than treating injuries more efficiently.

It's not to be confused with blood doping mind. Which is very different.

 

[mil1lion]

This has Daniel Levy investigation written all over it. I can see him in his office with about 20 lawyers going over it like Mr Burns.

 

[Geyzer Soze]

I think alot of people are (naturally) associating this with this season. But it's not, it's historic. The only reason Leicester are even mentioned, in the context of this report, is the association with Huth who was at Chelsea in the time period

there is absolutely nothing in the report or allegations that have anything whatsoever to do with any of the other players, and certainly not this season.

Not to say there is nothing fishy, but these particular allegations date back from like the late 2000's ... we're not going to get a magic bullet which throws Leicester city down right now

 

[Bulletspur]

I don't know if there's any truth to the claims and I believe they should be proved guilty before we go off the deep end, but to say nobody has mentioned it before is just wrong. I've seen a fair few people mention it on here and they were all ridiculed for it and called sore losers.

Loads of people have previously mentioned the 'roids thing in relation to Leicester. Literally loads.

It was largely mentioned tongue in cheek, but people have been talking directly about it for months. There have been regular comments about how they look like they're on something. It's the main reason they were mentioned on here before any specific allegations were made. It's the fact that people had already been speculating about it before they were actually accused that lends such speculation a degree of legitimacy.

If I could be arsed I'd trawl through the site to find all the previous comments I've seen about them being doped up. I can't, but believe me, they exist.

Except loads of people mentioned it before and this is out it only adds credence to those claims

To be honest its the first time I am hearing about any of these allegations or suspicions. If what you say is true about people having had and voicing their suspicions before, then fair enough, I must have missed it.

 

[animal]

A lot of straw clutching going on here I think, even though Leicester's rapid rise is hard to comprehend. How has Jamie Vardy gone so quickly from playing in the conference to scoring back heels against Germany? If it is all legitimate then it probably means there is a lot more top class potential stuck in the lower leagues. On the fitness front Leicester have played 10 games less than us with the benefit of not travelling around Europe and a full week rest time between games. That is probably a big factor in them sustaining their performance level throughout the season. I think they'll struggle big time next season as they'll have a full schedule of champs league group games to deal with. Genuinely believe this is a flash in the pan season for them, albeit it an almighty one!