I am sure over the coming month one of football’s little secrets will come to life, but until then I am going to do what every other football fan does and tell everyone that doping does not happen in football while going to my favourite website I always visit for great sports book reviews before trying to decide my weekly bets. When it comes to football it is hard not to bet with your heart which is where this site comes in helping me to make more rational decisions.
Just recently there has been a lot of news about doping in sport with the biggest revelation being that of Lance Armstrong finally admitting what people had been saying all along that he had been using performance enhancing drugs in order to win the Tour de France, and other cycling events.
It was the aid of these drugs and his ability to hide the fact he was taking drugs thanks to blood transfusions that led to so many victories.
Now having come clean on the Oprah Winfrey television show I thought that the man did not go far enough to explain himself nor did I see too much remorse in his interview.
It is something that is proving to be a problem in every sport especially where individual achievements are concerned from Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa having a record breaking season of home runs while pumped up to look like the amazing Hulk to a Norwegian ski Jumper looking to gain that extra metre.
While we say thank goodness we do not have doping problems in football I think if you dig deeper you would find that it exists there as well.
Former Dutch International Frank de Boer was found guilty of taking Nandrolone following a Barcelona cup tie in 2001 leading to the 31-year-old being banned from the game by FIFA for a year.
All this of course leads me to speculate that the use of performance enhancing drugs in football has to be going on yet testing is not thourgh enough to catch the cheats out.
Today in the news Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has called for blood tests in football in order to catch the players that are cheating saying:
“I don’t think we do enough, because it is very difficult for me to believe that you have 740 players in the World Cup and you come out with zero problems.”
“Mathematically that happens every time, but statistically, even for social drugs, it looks like we could do better and go deeper,” he added.
“When you have a doping control at Uefa, they do not take blood, they take only urine. I have asked many times (at Uefa meetings) in Geneva (for that to be changed).”
I think if we really get into it you will open a can of worms that could seriously damage the reputation of football, and I am not just talking about social drugs, but drugs that are being given to players in order for injuries to heal quicker, or even player themselves looking to add a few million on to their price tag.
One day the truth will come out, but until then I will just keep saying that there is no doping in the beautiful game.
