Can you imagine the ENTIRE team being banned for using banned substances?

BiggyRat · February 6, 2013

That's what's on the cards for my AFL team Essendon.

A sports "scientist" was using supplements 'right on the limit' of legal & made all the players sign waivers exonerating the club from any fault! Unbeleivable.

Players were being taken off site for injections, coaching staff weren't aware of what the supplements were, and they apparently stopped mid season. Strangely, they started the season with an 11/1 w/l record but fell away to a 3/10 run home! Coincidence maybe? I think not.

The players could get a 2 year ban which means the club could not compete for 2 years if this happened!:blink:

the sniderman · February 6, 2013

**swings out**

Degs62 · February 6, 2013

It's not like it's a real sport anyway

Bruce Wayne · February 6, 2013

As an aside, did you know that Franz Beckenbauer is widely regarded to have doped throughout his career? He's on record as saying he regularly injected himself with fresh blood. It wasn't illegal at the time, but still. With the accusations currently floating around the Sociedad team in Spain (it also wasn't illegal in Spain at the time)...

I'm not surprised about Essenden though. I mean Andrew Johns came out and said he openly took stuff at the RL World Cup. If the best player in the world could take drugs without detection at the World Cup then it says plenty about the rigour of the testing.

Blue Truth · February 6, 2013

wish it happened to collingwood instead

Bruce Wayne · February 6, 2013

Blue Truth said:
wish it happened to collingwood instead

Do you not like gingers mate?

Elong · February 6, 2013

Bruce Wayne said:
As an aside, did you know that Franz Beckenbauer is widely regarded to have doped throughout his career? He's on record as saying he regularly injected himself with fresh blood. It wasn't illegal at the time, but still. With the accusations currently floating around the Sociedad team in Spain (it also wasn't illegal in Spain at the time)...

I'm not surprised about Essenden though. I mean Andrew Johns came out and said he openly took stuff at the RL World Cup. If the best player in the world could take drugs without detection at the World Cup then it says plenty about the rigour of the testing.

Andrew Johns was doing lines of coke as well, I'm not sure that'd be classed as "enhancing" :lol:

Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian · February 6, 2013

Elong said:
Andrew Johns was doing lines of coke as well, I'm not sure that'd be classed as "enhancing"

well it was for Dirty Diego the cheat.

They should all be banned anyway for wearing vests and the 50's rigueur of the supporters, not to mention the crap chants and pom poms.

Groucho · February 6, 2013

Bruce, I didn't know that about Beckenbauer.

Sometimes though, I do wonder at the sheer scale of it.

Bruce Wayne · February 6, 2013

Elong said:
Andrew Johns was doing lines of coke as well, I'm not sure that'd be classed as "enhancing"

Well yeah, it did for Maradonna though. You'd still think the testing would have un-earthed it.

Groucho said:
Bruce, I didn't know that about Beckenbauer.

Sometimes though, I do wonder at the sheer scale of it.

There's a book on it that's supposed to be pretty revealing http://www.danieldrepper.de/doping-im-fusball-beckenbauer-juve-und-ein-bayrischer-arzt/

And of course the Fuentes trial at the moment is doing its best to avoid any kind of digging around the footballers and tennis players on his roster.

Bruce Wayne · February 6, 2013

This is from the Fuentes trial. The notes at the top are obviously Sociedad, and this might explain the 'magic' behind Milan's famed old boys facility.

IG is a type of growth hormone by the way.

njligernj · February 6, 2013

The way we tend to look at this problem is idiotic. We tend to look at sports in this very podium focused way. So we look at outliers and people who win a lot and break records and we wonder "are they cheating?" However that is the wrong question to ask. There are hundreds of thousands of athletes for whom using PED can enhance their careers and we have never heard of them, would never suspect them and will probably never catch them. If you are on the fringe of making a pro sports team a PED can put you over the edge. Now you're making decent money and the guy who didn't cheat and narrowly lost out on the spot has to go get a real job.

Forget about the guy who won three gold medals or broke a bunch of records. The average weekly wage for a league one player in 2009/10 (the latest number I could find) is 1410 pounds per week. 73k per year ... that's pretty good money for someone who didn't go to uni. Granted you have a limited time to earn that but my point is there is very real motivation to cheat even at that level.

If you are one of these fringe players your risk (a "nobody" caught doping which will never make the papers and won't impact your "real life") is very low and your reward (a career in pro sports) so high that it's arguably a perfectly rational decision.

The real problem isn't the players, doctors or the clubs it is the governing bodies in sports who are too scared to incorporate real testing because they know for a fact such a massive percentage of players would be caught out that they'd face a major crisis. Not just talking about football here but all sports. So instead we get scapegoats and a handful (worldwide) of clubs/players who aren't careful enough are caught. Enough to make it seem like they are doing something but not enough to actually stop everyone from trying.

In the NBA they have a wonderful rule -- you only be randomly tested five times. So what if you get your fifth test halfway through the season? It's time to party.

Great documentary on PED to look up is a 30 for 30 on the 198(8?) Olympics where Ben Johnson was famously caught. Meanwhile it has since come out that probably every single participant in that race (aside from maybe one) was doping. They just punished the guy who won. (Seriously you should check out that doc ... it's pretty amazing stuff ... the US Olympic team had someone in the testing room unattended to "supervise" the tests and someone essentially admitted that they knew he was cheating but knew they wouldn't catch him so they tampered with his sample.)

25 years later we have the Lance Armstrong case.

So we "make an example" of Lance Armstrong and think we're doing something. Guess what? There are lots of athletes who are in no danger of winning seven "Tour of Frances" (or whatever the equivalent is in their sport) and know they can use banned substances with impunity because most governing bodies in sports only ever bother taking a close look at extreme cases (either extreme negligence in covering up your cheating -- like it sounds like in this AFL team's case -- or extreme achievement). If you're smart in how you use and off the grid in terms of celebrity (so basically 99% of athletes in the world) you shouldn't have any problems using PED.

Oh and we also enjoy "punishing" people in the sports we don't really care about that much. Remove 50% of the star players from the Champions League teams and all of a sudden people might be a lot less self-righteous about PED use (see Ray Lewis and Superbowl and hundreds of millions of people looking the other way because they don't want to screw up the big game).

FWIW I don't really care about PED use that much. I think it should probably be banned but don't feel any need to get all indignant and shocked and appalled when I find out someone was using. People have been caught doing this stuff for literally my entire life. I assume almost everyone is and don't particularly care. If they wanted to ban it they could find a way. They don't and generally speaking "we" (as in most sports fans) don't want to essentially lose a few seasons of the sports we love to try to clean them up.

Bruce Wayne · February 6, 2013

I think you're right Nigel. I try and do a European Granfondo each year, which is basically a mass participation, closed road event somewhere in Europe. Bit like the Great North Run or something but for cycling. You do get the odd semi-pro doing it but it's mainly amateurs, and it's not unheard of for people in them to fail tests.