It's time we talked about doping in football

11101

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What happened to the expose that one of the papers did a few years back? The one about the French doctor doping Leicester and a few other football teams?
Seemed to have a lot of legs before quickly being swept under the carpet.
Pep was caught doping whilst playing was he not? Even Bayern's doctor brought up doping when pressed about his relationship with pep completely out of the blue.
I think it's wrong to say it's just one or two teams doing it, but it's obviously rife from where I'm standing and it's clear that one or two teams tend to use these methods more prevalent than others.
There too much face for UEFA or FIFA to lose if doping was found to be widespread, it'd mean a complete rebuild of football as we know it, less money involved and less interest, hence these stories about doping keep getting shunted to the side and quickly forgotten.
Answered your own question.

It's going to take someone with a high enough profile to come out and make a stand against it. Lance Armstrong managed to keep everyone quiet for years in a sport about a thousand times smaller. Football will be a far harder nut to crack.
 

Thunderhead

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Well with all the data collected nowadays, with player history of sprint speeds, distances run etc etc, it will be pretty clear over the next few seasons if any of the Liverpool or City players stats suddenly change quite dramatically, either improving or dropping off.

The way Liverpool outran Barca and their and City's energy, fitness and injury records does look slightly fishy. The points gap is huge to the rest too.

The stats of individual players and teams are now no doubt going to be looked at very closely for signs.
City had one of the worst injury records in the league this season

Days lost to injuries 2018/19

Man United – 1,392

Arsenal – 1,316

West Ham – 1,237

Tottenham – 1,140

Man City – 1,134

Bournemouth – 1,108

Cardiff – 1,075

Newcastle – 1,051

Huddersfield – 1,039

Southampton – 873

Watford – 853

Burnley – 809

Liverpool – 801

Crystal Palace – 777

Brighton – 770

Fulham – 714

Everton – 557

Chelsea – 466

Leicester – 461

Wolves – 88
 

Champ

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Answered your own question.

It's going to take someone with a high enough profile to come out and make a stand against it. Lance Armstrong managed to keep everyone quiet for years in a sport about a thousand times smaller. Football will be a far harder nut to crack.
Agreed, To be fair Wenger came out and claimed to have played against many teams who were doping, but once again his claims were dismissed quickly.
 
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11101

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City had one of the worst injury records in the league this season

Days lost to injuries 2018/19

Man United – 1,392

Arsenal – 1,316

West Ham – 1,237

Tottenham – 1,140

Man City – 1,134

Bournemouth – 1,108

Cardiff – 1,075

Newcastle – 1,051

Huddersfield – 1,039

Southampton – 873

Watford – 853

Burnley – 809

Liverpool – 801

Crystal Palace – 777

Brighton – 770

Fulham – 714

Everton – 557

Chelsea – 466

Leicester – 461

Wolves – 88

Doping wouldn't prevent injuries, if anything it might exasperate them by enabling you to push your body beyond its capabilities. Recovery from injury is where they come into their own.
 

NoLogo

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I don't think City or Liverpool look particularly fishy when it comes to fitness levels. Pretty much any team bar us can keep a fairly high tempo in the PL these days. They will have dips for periods of every game but so do Liverpool and City.

So either all teams in the PL bar us are doping or our fitness levels are just really shit. I somehow think the latter is more likely. :lol:
 

NoLogo

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Doping wouldn't prevent injuries, if anything it might exasperate them by enabling you to push your body beyond its capabilities. Recovery from injury is where they come into their own.
Does that mean Liverpool ain't doping at all and we are doping like mad and are still the least fit team in the PL? Idk man something ain't adding up no matter how you twist it, I don't think injury stats prove much in that regard. Doesn't mean there is no doping going on of course.
 

11101

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Does that mean Liverpool ain't doping at all and we are doping like mad and are still the least fit team in the PL? Idk man something ain't adding up no matter how you twist it, I don't think injury stats prove much in that regard. Doesn't mean there is no doping going on of course.
I don't know why we have such a bad injury problem, but we do know we lack fitness and the injuries come when players start to get tired and push themselves beyond their limits. Kind of the same thing, but from a lower bar.

Looking at cycling or athletics, doping usually rears its head when somebody has an anomaly performance for one season/race or suddenly finds themselves way ahead of everyone else for a while, until everyone else catches up. It might be that they're the only ones at it (often sprinters), or the others just haven't found the latest, most effective method yet (cycling).
 

crossy1686

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Running 11k in 90 minutes as a midfielder is not unnatural.

"Each team has at least one person doping" is ridiculous as well, either you think it's organized or it isn't present at all. Based on what would that person be chosen? Why would only that person be willing to accepting the risk he's taking for his career? Such a weird claim based on nothing.
You’re right. I ran 10k the other day in 70 minutes. However, sprinting that distance is a whole different ball game, intensity plays a huge part.

I find it hard to believe that a lot of players in the PL aren’t doping. Micro dosing has been proven to give people an edge while keeping things looking normal on charts, I’d certainly do it if there were millions of pounds at stake and I needed to be faster to hold my place in the first team.

10mg of SARMS a day is nothing yet the effects are exponential, and Human Growth Hormone is untraceable but it aids with recovery speed from injuries and general fatigue. Ever wondered how players like KDB return from a knee ligament tear in 3 months when it's at least a 6 month injury?
 
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Abe144

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Fans want athletes to get faster, quicker, sharper and stronger AND remain clean? Foolish imo. I think all the elite athletes in all sports dope. And let them. The best will win anyway
 

BobbyManc

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I'm convinced almost all of the PL are on HGH to start with.
HGH in football? I don't believe that would provide a substantial advantage. I've even read before that some studies suggest HGH decreases stamina. It can be useful in certain areas but it would be surprising if HGH was the go-to drug for any players wanting to dope to enhance their performance.
 

crossy1686

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HGH in football? I don't believe that would provide a substantial advantage. I've even read before that some studies suggest HGH decreases stamina. It can be useful in certain areas but it would be surprising if HGH was the go-to drug for any players wanting to dope to enhance their performance.
Long term usage would be detrimental to overall health as it would cause metabolism issues amongst other things. Doping is generally done in cycles to ensure maximum gains and minimum side effects. I would suspect any major player at a big club would go through a course of it when carrying an injury, especially a long term one. Wouldn't be surprised if the teams that play three games a week at high intensity also run a course through the players for a couple of weeks.

It doesn't feck with your hormones so there's no need for a post cycle treatment (to return hormone levels back to normal) after taking it. You can jump on and off it at will as long as you know what you're doing, or the person giving it you does.
 

sullydnl

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Fans want athletes to get faster, quicker, sharper and stronger AND remain clean? Foolish imo. I think all the elite athletes in all sports dope. And let them. The best will win anyway
Which would then lead aspiring athletes to dope too if they want to make it as a professional. Except they won't have access to the best doctors and drugs, so they will dope in inherently more dangerous ways. Which leads to a public health crisis with potentially horrible consequences for young men, not to mention a decline in participation. What self-respecting parent would allow their teenager to compete in an environment where there's such pressure on them to begin doping?

There's also no guarantee that it would level the playing field or that the best would still win. Those who are willing to take a riskier and more aggressive approach to doping may still have an advantage.
 

crossy1686

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Which would then lead aspiring athletes to dope too if they want to make it as a professional. Except they won't have access to the best doctors and drugs, so they will dope in inherently more dangerous ways. Which leads to a public health crisis with potentially horrible consequences for young men, not to mention a decline in participation. What self-respecting parent would allow their teenager to compete in an environment where there's such pressure on them to begin doping?

There's also no guarantee that it would level the playing field or that the best would still win. Those who are willing to take a riskier and more aggressive approach to doping may still have an advantage.
To be honest, I've been quite naive to drug taking all my life. I've never done it so I've never been around people doing it, or people haven't done it around me, nor talked to me about it but realistically there's a drug culture in the UK and other European cities that find taking class A substances on par with having a few pints and no amount of police propaganda is going to stop them enjoying themselves.

You've only got to sign up to a gym to see that a large majority of the men in your average gym are on something anabolic. Your body can only naturally get to a certain point before you're at the point of diminishing gains, and unless you're absolutely dedicating every waking minute to bodybuilding you're never going to progress past a certain size. It's everywhere but people don't talk about it.
 

Stick

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You’re right. I ran 10k the other day in 70 minutes. However, sprinting that distance is a whole different ball game, intensity plays a huge part.

I find it hard to believe that a lot of players in the PL aren’t doping. Micro dosing has been proven to give people an edge while keeping things looking normal on charts, I’d certainly do it if there were millions of pounds at stake and I needed to be faster to hold my place in the first team.

10mg of SARMS a day is nothing yet the effects are exponential, and Human Growth Hormone is untraceable but it aids with recovery speed from injuries and general fatigue. Ever wondered how players like KDB return from a knee ligament tear in 3 months when it's at least a 6 month injury?
You're not sprinting all the time in football and in fact at the top level I would say clever players have figured out how to be incredibly efficient. Didn't Beckham cover on average about 14km per game. I'm nowhere near a pro athlete and I covered 8km in a lunchtime game of ball. I look at the City and Liverpool midfield in particular and I see wingers in Salah, Mane, Sane and Sterling who are naturally fast athletes. In centre mid City have Silva x 2, Fernandinho, KDB who arent speedsters but are certainly technically gifted and can pass excellently. Liverpool have Henderson, Gini, Milner, Keita and Fabinho. I would argue the fastest is Keita who had the least impact of all this year and again hard work and technical ability is more their game than speed. I could certainly see how PEDs would help work horses but I think the technically gifted lads would still pick holes in teams with or without PEDs.