The two previous articles I've written have been firmly aimed at your smile muscles. However I have just posted a short article about drug testing within football.
I think the authorities sometimes know more than they let on. There is a very fine line between accepted and banned substances.
Interesting to note that for the 1998 World Cup, the England players were FORCED to take creatine based concoctions. Now if our national FA is aware of the sofistication of medicines that enhance yet remain within the boundaries of acceptablility, don't you think other groups and certainly other nationalities are also sailing close to the wind ?
There are always rumours flying about, one I remember froma decade back came to me via a friend who was mates of a couple of Millwall players at the time. He told me that the News of the World was going to publish a shock, horror type expose of a current Man U player and a reasonably high-profile one at that - he was a English international. Given that this rumour had spread through the football world it is pretty inconceivable that the FA and their drug testers didn't know about it. When Ferguson found out that the story was about to run he threatened to ban not just the NoTW, but the Sun, the Times and Sky etc from Old Trafford. Unsurprisingly the NOTW backed down and canned the story. The player in question was never tested and then spent some time away from the game recovering from a "hernia" operation.
[cite]Posted By: BlackForestReds[/cite]A good article, given the money involved and the status and profile of the game there should be more drug tests carried out.
You appear to have some knowledge of this area, what is involved? For example how many players are tested at any one time at a club?
From reading the Fa regulations it appears that two players are chosen from each side when the test takes place during a match, and three players if it is at the training ground. The FA used to (not sure if this is still the case) plan all tests early in the season and there have been unsubstantiated rumours that there have been leaks of who will be tested and when. I think this came out during a Panorama programme a few years ago.
In many ways I have sympathy with the FA. Drug testing is expensive, some bodies do not test for EPO (a big issue in cycling and would certainly be useful as a performance enhancer in football) as the test is too costly. i beleive the FA does now test for this. As I said in the article the FA will always be playing catch up as far as performance enhancing goes, but the anomaly is with the recreational subtances. The big issue in my mind being that there are virtually no tests carried out during the close season (there were 13 last year) which gives a decent period for substances to be introduced and cleared from a players system.
Comments
You appear to have some knowledge of this area, what is involved? For example how many players are tested at any one time at a club?
I think the authorities sometimes know more than they let on. There is a very fine line between accepted and banned substances.
Interesting to note that for the 1998 World Cup, the England players were FORCED to take creatine based concoctions. Now if our national FA is aware of the sofistication of medicines that enhance yet remain within the boundaries of acceptablility, don't you think other groups and certainly other nationalities are also sailing close to the wind ?
From reading the Fa regulations it appears that two players are chosen from each side when the test takes place during a match, and three players if it is at the training ground. The FA used to (not sure if this is still the case) plan all tests early in the season and there have been unsubstantiated rumours that there have been leaks of who will be tested and when. I think this came out during a Panorama programme a few years ago.
In many ways I have sympathy with the FA. Drug testing is expensive, some bodies do not test for EPO (a big issue in cycling and would certainly be useful as a performance enhancer in football) as the test is too costly. i beleive the FA does now test for this. As I said in the article the FA will always be playing catch up as far as performance enhancing goes, but the anomaly is with the recreational subtances. The big issue in my mind being that there are virtually no tests carried out during the close season (there were 13 last year) which gives a decent period for substances to be introduced and cleared from a players system.
http://www.uefa.com/uefa/Keytopics/kind=1/newsId=467837.html