Pep - Doping (?) | Are PEDs being used by footballers

[MVBDX]

I suggest reading this:

The most successful wrestler of all time got found out after 7 years! And was stripped of his Olympic gold medal, while the silver medal had been stripped of as well like a year ago, so the original bronze medalist will get the gold for now... and this case is the 60th athlete from "London 2012" to be disqualified.

If they can do it at the Olympic -where you'd expect the tightest measures after so many disasters-, only to be found out 7 years later, it should be pretty easy to do it in football. BTW Pep has had doping cases in his playing days, and he's used different excuses (like the bus leaving early) to avoid testing his players.

 

[B20]

No City player missed a drug test ala Rio for what its worth. City failed to inform the FA of changes to training times so failed on the player location rule. it was nothing to do with missing drug tests hence the 35k fine in comparison to Rios ban.

Bournemouth were given the exact same fine for exactly the same issue funnily enough but it never gets mentioned here... drugs must only work for us.

As for the bolded bit Gabriel Jesus wept...

Bornemouth is actually a good candidate for doping. Overperforming team that, incidentally, ran more miles than any other team in the league last season. And was second in most sprints in the league as well.

 

[B20]

I think city are an obvious candidate for doping based on the following criteria:

• Going on the widespread use of it in all sports and the extremely easy ways of dodging it football, doping is bound to happen, also systemically, at the highest level
• City have owners with zero morals who have shown themselves to be eager to circumvent and subvert the rules wherever possible. Doping would seem a matter of course for them.
• Their manager was a doper as a player
• He took the doctor who doped him as a player with him to barcelona, who then began to perform with unprecedented intensity levels

The main reasons for doubting that they are doping is that I can't find any statistics that mark them out as suspicious (Bournemouth is a much more likely candidate from this angle). So if they are doping, it is not to top the distance covered charts, or sprints made. It would be interesting to see how they perform in the last 10-15 minutes of games relative to other teams in the league though.

 

[Gehrman]

I think city are an obvious candidate for doping based on the following criteria:

• Going on the widespread use of it in all sports and the extremely easy ways of dodging it football, doping is bound to happen, also systemically, at the highest level
• City have owners with zero morals who have shown themselves to be eager to circumvent and subvert the rules wherever possible. Doping would seem a matter of course for them.
• Their manager was a doper as a player
• He took the doctor who doped him as a player with him to barcelona, who then began to perform with unprecedented intensity levels

The main reasons for doubting that they are doping is that I can't find any statistics that mark them out as suspicious (Bournemouth is a much more likely candidate from this angle). So if they are doping, it is not to top the distance covered charts, or sprints made. It would be interesting to see how they perform in the last 10-15 minutes of games relative to other teams in the league though.

I think the fact that the spanish doping doctor said that if he told the truth Spain would lose their 2010 WC and the fact that the Madrid court had the blood samples destroyed smacks of the fact that there is a good chance there is some truth to the notion that Spanish Barcalona and Real Madrid players may have been doping. But we might never know. It's just naive to believe that Footballers for some reason would be not be doping while it's rampant in every other sport. Still in terms of Guardiola's teams it's just speculation until proven otherwise, but there can be geniuene reasons to be suspiscious.

 

[Adam-Utd]

Can PEDS be used with a Saline Drip? or does it have to have blood involved.

 

[B20]

I think the fact that the spanish doping doctor said that if he told the truth Spain would lose their 2010 WC and the fact that the Madrid court had the blood samples destroyed smacks of the fact that there is a good chance there is some truth to the notion that Spanish Barcalona and Real Madrid players may have been doping. But we might never know. It's just naive to believe that Footballers for some reason would be not be doping while it's rampant in every other sport. Still in terms of Guardiola's teams it's just speculation until proven otherwise, but there can be geniuene reasons to be suspiscious.

The samples were not actually destroyed. Took some years of appeal, but they are now in the possession of WADA. They are however blocked by the Spanish courts to release any names they may have uncovered due to data protection and statute of limitation laws.

 

[B20]

For those who wonder how doping might work in football, this article is very informative. Highlights:

Aiming to better educate players on the health risks associated with doping, Lotfi dedicated his final thesis to finding out what they knew about performance enhancing drugs. For it, he interviewed former colleagues and found that as many as 30 percent in some leagues admitted to doping.

Do you have an idea how many players at the World Cup are doping?
I can't really speculate on that. In the Bundesliga [Germany's top domestic league] I discovered through my research that around 15 percent of players have doped at least once. In Spain, it was as high as 30 percent.

If an entire team is remarkably fit throughout an entire World Cup, especially in particularly exhausting games, then I would worry. At this level, there shouldn't be any serious outliers; fitness levels should be relatively similar across the board. (cough cough)

But some people say that doping doesn't actually help footballers.
I would say that doping is definitely more useful before a major tournament like the World Cup, and not necessarily during. There are so many games in such a short space of time, so the players have less time to recover. There are things you can do in the pre-tournament training phase to help your body learn to recover quicker and slow down the onset of fatigue

Do players always know that they are taking illegal substance?
No, not necessarily. One of the most shocking things I discovered is the alarmingly high number of my former teammates who don't know what is on the banned substances list. And very few of them question what they are given, to the point where if they were caught, they probably wouldn't have even heard of the drug they were accused of taking.

Do players dope themselves or do they always get help from their coaches and team doctor?
Some of the players I surveyed said that they bought steroids themselves on the black market. But those were mostly players who wanted to get back up to full fitness as quickly as possible after an injury.​

 

[B20]

For those who wonder how doping might work in football, this article is very informative. Highlights:

If an entire team is remarkably fit throughout an entire World Cup, especially in particularly exhausting games, then I would worry. At this level, there shouldn't be any serious outliers; fitness levels should be relatively similar across the board. (cough cough)
​

​

Addendum to this one:

Russia and Australia also topped the distance covered charts in the 2014 world cup.

 

[Gehrman]

The samples were not actually destroyed. Took some years of appeal, but they are now in the possession of WADA. They are however blocked by the Spanish courts to release any names they may have uncovered due to data protection and statute of limitation laws.

It's good you could correct me.

I still want to believe that Pep's Barca was doped just because they raped us in 2 Cl finals.

 

[BobbyManc]

I think city are an obvious candidate for doping based on the following criteria:

• Going on the widespread use of it in all sports and the extremely easy ways of dodging it football, doping is bound to happen, also systemically, at the highest level
• City have owners with zero morals who have shown themselves to be eager to circumvent and subvert the rules wherever possible. Doping would seem a matter of course for them.
• Their manager was a doper as a player
• He took the doctor who doped him as a player with him to barcelona, who then began to perform with unprecedented intensity levels

The main reasons for doubting that they are doping is that I can't find any statistics that mark them out as suspicious (Bournemouth is a much more likely candidate from this angle). So if they are doping, it is not to top the distance covered charts, or sprints made. It would be interesting to see how they perform in the last 10-15 minutes of games relative to other teams in the league though.

If City are doping, given the quality of our squad, you'd have to naturally then wonder how on earth Liverpool managed to challenge us closely for the title last season with a smaller squad and go all the way in European competition, all the while beating City in distance covered by over 100km and having completed the most sprints in the league.

 

[B20]

It's good you could correct me.

I still want to believe that Pep's Barca was doped just because they raped us in 2 Cl finals.

Even if they were released, I doubt any footballers would be found. I don't think blood doping is likely to be the doping method of choice in football.

Still, you have coaches like Del Bosque commenting "it is a subject I prefer to ignore." Klopp claiming it isn't a problem in football bayern's doctor the same. If they are not culpable then they are wilfully naive. Wenger is one of the few coaches in top football who had the integrity to speak up about it, including concerns that some of his own players were doping when they came to Arsenal.

Then there are correlations like Antonio Pintus, the fitness coach for juventus during the 90s when they were doping to the gills, being brought to Real Madrid by Zidane, who was doped at juve during the very same period. And iffy 'nearly' episodes with Ramos getting undeclared injections prior to the CL final, breaking testing regulations on other occasions (dodging testers for half an hour on one occasion, getting club personel to draw the blood instead of the testers on another). And now Pintus has left Madrid to join another juve doper from the 90s, Conte, at Inter.

If football ever has a Festina scandal and start unravelling all this properly the signs and patterns will be flashing in neon for people to trace.

 

[He'sRaldo]

If City are doping, given the quality of our squad, you'd have to naturally then wonder how on earth Liverpool managed to challenge us closely for the title last season with a smaller squad and go all the way in European competition, all the while beating City in distance covered by over 100km and having completed the most sprints in the league.

Yeah Liverpool's run last season was shocking actually. Very close to a PL and CL double with virtually the same first 11, while playing at very high intensity.

Interesting to think about.

 

[Gehrman]

Yeah Liverpool's run last season was shocking actually. Very close to a PL and CL double with virtually the same first 11, while playing at very high intensity.

Interesting to think about.

The answer is obvious. Liverpool are doping even more.

 

[B20]

If City are doping, given the quality of our squad, you'd have to naturally then wonder how on earth Liverpool managed to challenge us closely for the title last season with a smaller squad and go all the way in European competition, all the while beating City in distance covered by over 100km and having completed the most sprints in the league.

We did play 8 fewer games than you did last season. But like I said, your distance and sprint stats don't stick out. Nor do our distance covered stats. Bournemouth sticks out like sore thumb by being able to be top and top two in both. So if you are doping, it is to hit other metrics than those. Performance analysis in the final 15 minutes would be interesting to see across the league.

I can't say with any certainty liverpool are not doping. With Klopp's character, I want to believe we wouldn't. It's hard to interpret a case like Sakho, but I'd feel a lot safer about it if Klopp actually acknowledged the issue of doping in the sport in the way Wenger did, as opposed to trivialising it, which at best makes him greatly naive.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

No City player missed a drug test ala Rio for what its worth. City failed to inform the FA of changes to training times so failed on the player location rule. it was nothing to do with missing drug tests hence the 35k fine in comparison to Rios ban.

Bournemouth were given the exact same fine for exactly the same issue funnily enough but it never gets mentioned here... drugs must only work for us.

As for the bolded bit Gabriel Jesus wept...

Christian Negouai did indeed miss a drug test in very similar fashion to Rio way back when but that's from a different time.

 

[BobbyManc]

We did play 8 fewer games than you did last season. But like I said, your distance and sprint stats don't stick out. Nor do our distance covered stats. Bournemouth sticks out like sore thumb by being able to be top and top two in both. So if you are doping, it is to hit other metrics than those. Performance analysis in the final 15 minutes would be interesting to see across the league.

I can't say with any certainty liverpool are not doping. With Klopp's character, I want to believe we wouldn't. It's hard to interpret a case like Sakho, but I'd feel a lot safer about it if Klopp actually acknowledged the issue of doping in the sport in the way Wenger did, as opposed to trivialising it, which at best makes him greatly naive.

It's worth noting Liverpool under Klopp worked with an ex-swimmer Mark Wernecke who is notable for inventing a 'recovery drink'. He previously worked with Dana Torres, who came out of a seven year retirement, and a year after giving birth to her first child aged 41 then broke her previous records and some US ones.

 

[Fosu-Mens]

Even if they were released, I doubt any footballers would be found. I don't think blood doping is likely to be the doping method of choice in football.

Still, you have coaches like Del Bosque commenting "it is a subject I prefer to ignore." Klopp claiming it isn't a problem in football bayern's doctor the same. If they are not culpable then they are wilfully naive. Wenger is one of the few coaches in top football who had the integrity to speak up about it, including concerns that some of his own players were doping when they came to Arsenal.

Then there are correlations like Antonio Pintus, the fitness coach for juventus during the 90s when they were doping to the gills, being brought to Real Madrid by Zidane, who was doped at juve during the very same period. And iffy 'nearly' episodes with Ramos getting undeclared injections prior to the CL final, breaking testing regulations on other occasions (dodging testers for half an hour on one occasion, getting club personel to draw the blood instead of the testers on another). And now Pintus has left Madrid to join another juve doper from the 90s, Conte, at Inter.

If football ever has a Festina scandal and start unravelling all this properly the signs and patterns will be flashing in neon for people to trace.

With the money involved at the top, the biggest clubs are able to get the newest PEDs available. Heck, they can even afford to their own tailormade program with fulltime employed scientist developing and engineering PEDs for different purposes. Combining this with outdated and few tests (mostly urine)...

 

[B20]

It's worth noting Liverpool under Klopp worked with an ex-swimmer Mark Wernecke who is notable for inventing a 'recovery drink'. He previously worked with Dana Torres, who came out of a seven year retirement, and a year after giving birth to her first child aged 41 then broke her previous records and some US ones.

Yeah, apparently all the players take the "isotopic drink" he developed. It's been tested and approved though.

 

[B20]

Yeah Liverpool's run last season was shocking actually. Very close to a PL and CL double with virtually the same first 11, while playing at very high intensity.

Interesting to think about.

In fairness, we also had the second highest numbers of injuries last season.

 

[crossy1686]

Can PEDS be used with a Saline Drip? or does it have to have blood involved.

Doesn't have to be any of those. You can administer some PED's orally as a liquid or pill form, depends on what you're taking.

Most of these will be taking new experimental drugs that increase cardiovascular endurance like Cardarine or HGH, not steroids or another anabolic.

 

[BobbyManc]

Yeah, apparently all the players take the "isotopic drink" he developed. It's been tested and approved though.

Well the isotopic drink makes for a nice story but I don't think anyone is buying that Dana Torres could come out of a seven year retirement aged 41, recently made a mother, and break US records on the back of some magic mineral water.

 

[crossy1686]

Yeah, apparently all the players take the "isotopic drink" he developed. It's been tested and approved though.

The one they tested passed everything...

I very much doubt the one's they didn't test would have.

 

[B20]

Took a look at some stats over a few seasons.

Last season, Liverpool were top for sprints, middle ground in distance covered. City were middle ground in both. Bournemouth was second in sprints and top in distance covered.
The season before that, liverpool were middle ground in both distance covered and sprints. City were middle ground in distance covered and top in sprints. Bournemouth was once again top in distance covered and 5th in sprints. City and Bournemouth were also fined for failure to keep the governing body informed on the location of their players that season.

 

[Thunderhead]

I think city are an obvious candidate for doping based on the following criteria:

• Going on the widespread use of it in all sports and the extremely easy ways of dodging it football, doping is bound to happen, also systemically, at the highest level
• City have owners with zero morals who have shown themselves to be eager to circumvent and subvert the rules wherever possible. Doping would seem a matter of course for them.
• Their manager was a doper as a player
• He took the doctor who doped him as a player with him to barcelona, who then began to perform with unprecedented intensity levels

The main reasons for doubting that they are doping is that I can't find any statistics that mark them out as suspicious (Bournemouth is a much more likely candidate from this angle). So if they are doping, it is not to top the distance covered charts, or sprints made. It would be interesting to see how they perform in the last 10-15 minutes of games relative to other teams in the league though.

last season we never scored a winner from a drawing position or a goal to get a draw from a losing position after the 75th minute in the league, I know this means doesn't mean much either way but if we scored 6 or 7 winners in the last 15 mins then you might have a point. think we drew 2 and lost 4 so in about 15% of games we didn't manage to do anything in the last 15 mins.

 

[Foxbatt]

I think Mata is doing it too if he is quicker than Shaw.

 

[Nick7]

Took a look at some stats over a few seasons.

Last season, Liverpool were top for sprints, middle ground in distance covered. City were middle ground in both. Bournemouth was second in sprints and top in distance covered.
The season before that, liverpool were middle ground in both distance covered and sprints. City were middle ground in distance covered and top in sprints. Bournemouth was once again top in distance covered and 5th in sprints. City and Bournemouth were also fined for failure to keep the governing body informed on the location of their players that season.

Bournemouth should get a refund for their PED's. Clearly not working.

 

[B20]

Bournemouth should get a refund for their PED's. Clearly not working.

Think they have overall done better than expected in the Premier league league.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

I think city are an obvious candidate for doping based on the following criteria:

• Going on the widespread use of it in all sports and the extremely easy ways of dodging it football, doping is bound to happen, also systemically, at the highest level
• City have owners with zero morals who have shown themselves to be eager to circumvent and subvert the rules wherever possible. Doping would seem a matter of course for them.
• Their manager was a doper as a player
• He took the doctor who doped him as a player with him to barcelona, who then began to perform with unprecedented intensity levels

The main reasons for doubting that they are doping is that I can't find any statistics that mark them out as suspicious (Bournemouth is a much more likely candidate from this angle). So if they are doping, it is not to top the distance covered charts, or sprints made. It would be interesting to see how they perform in the last 10-15 minutes of games relative to other teams in the league though.

Good points.

Also injury recovery time would be interesting to look at in comparison with other clubs too.

 

[Nick7]

Think they have overall done better than expected in the Premier league league.

I was only joking really.

 

[fps]

Re the Man City thing. If Man City are doing it, loads of the top teams are doing it. The difference is they're doing it better, with better players.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Took a look at some stats over a few seasons.

Last season, Liverpool were top for sprints, middle ground in distance covered. City were middle ground in both. Bournemouth was second in sprints and top in distance covered.
The season before that, liverpool were middle ground in both distance covered and sprints. City were middle ground in distance covered and top in sprints. Bournemouth was once again top in distance covered and 5th in sprints. City and Bournemouth were also fined for failure to keep the governing body informed on the location of their players that season.

Bournemouth have a doping violation regarding the whereabouts rule, same as City.

 

[Adam-Utd]

Doesn't have to be any of those. You can administer some PED's orally as a liquid or pill form, depends on what you're taking.

Most of these will be taking new experimental drugs that increase cardiovascular endurance like Cardarine or HGH, not steroids or another anabolic.

I see.

Reason why I asked is often players use saline drips for rehydration.

I wonder if players have been doping and not even realising it. the club could happily tell them it’s good for recovery and I’m sure they’d go along with it.

 

[crossy1686]

I see.

Reason why I asked is often players use saline drips for rehydration.

I wonder if players have been doping and not even realising it. the club could happily tell them it’s good for recovery and I’m sure they’d go along with it.

You could administer in saline but it wouldn't really be necessary, they could just whack it in a protein shake instead.

 

[B20]

I see.

Reason why I asked is often players use saline drips for rehydration.

I wonder if players have been doping and not even realising it. the club could happily tell them it’s good for recovery and I’m sure they’d go along with it.

I remember reading an interiew a while back with a recently retired footballer (don't remember who and google is no help) about taking care of yourself and your career. Said that for a long time, he never knew or cared what the doctors asked him to take or injected into him. Was the same for pretty much all his teammates. Maybe there was a part that ought to be more curious, but the pressure to make it was so big - It's not like he'd say 'yes' to doping, but if whatever the doctors gave him helped improve, why not trust them?
It was only when he started caring about his own body later in his career he also started asking questions about what the hell he was being asked to take and get injected. He didn't outright say he had been doping but you got the sense that he suspected he very would could have been earlier in his career without ever being told.

 

[Adam-Utd]

I remember reading an interiew a while back with a recently retired footballer (don't remember who and google is no help) about taking care of yourself and your career. Said that for a long time, he never knew or cared what the doctors asked him to take or injected into him. Was the same for pretty much all his teammates. Maybe there was a part that ought to be more curious, but the pressure to make it was so big - It's not like he'd say 'yes' to doping, but if whatever the doctors gave him helped improve, why not trust them?
It was only when he started caring about his own body later in his career he also started asking questions about what the hell he was being asked to take and get injected. He didn't outright say he had been doping but you got the sense that he suspected he very would could have been earlier in his career without ever being told.

Yep this sort of scenario is exactly what i'm thinking of.

If Pep comes at the city players and says "hey guys big match next week let my doctor rehydrate you and help your recovery" they have no reason to distrust him. If its as innocous as that I doubt the players even realise it.

I just can't ignore the signs around Pep. I'm sure in the future the truth will be revealed eventually.

 

[crossy1686]

Yep this sort of scenario is exactly what i'm thinking of.

If Pep comes at the city players and says "hey guys big match next week let my doctor rehydrate you and help your recovery" they have no reason to distrust him. If its as innocous as that I doubt the players even realise it.

I just can't ignore the signs around Pep. I'm sure in the future the truth will be revealed eventually.

Doping is usually integrated and systematic. It's done as part of a routine and therefore normalised so no one asked questions. Any team that is doping will most likely have it as part of their pre and post game routines.

 

[Adam-Utd]

Doping is usually integrated and systematic. It's done as part of a routine and therefore normalised so no one asked questions. Any team that is doping will most likely have it as part of their pre and post game routines.

As others have said, they could all be doing it as part of their recovery session in house the next day? If it was done through a shake or a drip and seen as provided by "a doctor" then why would anybody question it?

Most players aren't the sharpest, they probably think it's not drugs unless it's injected with a needle or something.

 

[crossy1686]

As others have said, they could all be doing it as part of their recovery session in house the next day? If it was done through a shake or a drip and seen as provided by "a doctor" then why would anybody question it?

Most players aren't the sharpest, they probably think it's not drugs unless it's injected with a needle or something.

Yep, absolutely. There was a few English players who played in Italy in the 90's and they said they would go to the club doctor as part of the recovery phase and he would give them pills to take. No one asked what they were but they took them anyway and felt amazing afterwards.

 

[B20]

Doping is usually integrated and systematic. It's done as part of a routine and therefore normalised so no one asked questions. Any team that is doping will most likely have it as part of their pre and post game routines.

I would imagine they are more likely to do it on non match days.

Injury recovery periods and pre season being the time to go heavy. It's absolutely crazy that there is no testing done out of competition. You can easily beat the test with 20 year old protocols, nevermind the latest and greatest which football has more money than anyother sport to invest in.

Given how remarkably easy it is to run doping programs in football, it wouldn't be a surprise if it is utterly pervasive and so normalised that a lot of the people we'd discount as doing it due to their character are in fact doing it because it's just normal everywhere.

 

[Adam-Utd]

Yep, absolutely. There was a few English players who played in Italy in the 90's and they said they would go to the club doctor as part of the recovery phase and he would give them pills to take. No one asked what they were but they took them anyway and felt amazing afterwards.

Exactly. These guys are all winners and if it gives them an extra 5% and very little chance of being caught they'd take it. Look at all the other athletes around the world doing it, it's just TOO TEMPTING to ignore.

It's a shame as Guardiola is a fantastic coach but the fact he has this hanging over him, i'll never respect him as the best.