Glancing through some of the cases listed here: http://www.4dfoot.com/2013/02/09/doping-in-football-fifty-years-of-evidence I must say I'm growing fairly sceptical about how clean football is. Looks like it's been common all over the continent from at least the 60's onward. Not much stories about English club football. Perhaps England is the home of fair play after all?
Unfortunately, almost every major sports has doping scandals in the modern world. Problems in track and field, swimming, weightlifting, American football, baseball, cycling, etc are well-documented. I don't think it is something to do with sports and nationality. I don't think a person who does soccer is less likely to do doping than a person who does cycling. Greed, blind ambitions, etc are human traits. Soccer is the biggest sport in the world. It certainly generates much more money than some of them. The level of competition is among the highest. I hope it is a clean sport, but I am not surprised at all if doping is common. It isn't 1988 anymore. We now know that Ben Johnson was not the only one doping on that day he "won" the Gold Medal. I went to school with low level American football players and swimmer in High School. They all did it.... and all their friends did it. And that was before Ben Johnson. I always thought that sports are not clean. Yes, Armstrong is a cheater, but it did not shock me. Anyone who followed sports regularly knew that doping in cycling is very common. In fact, when he announced that he had cancer, drugs were the first thing that came to mind.
Very good list. You might add Italy to the list and maybe also France1998 (in their own country). Or the stories about Muller Wohlfart, a real dirt-jack. Rolink, the former Ajax team doctor mentioned by you in your article, said back in 1980 that one on every eleven professional football players at the top flights uses illegal doping. At the big teams and big leagues more than somewhere else. But the same Rolink has always stated that what he prescribed to his players does not even look in the remote sense to doping (which I do not believe but I'm no Ajax fan). Perhaps it is just part of the sport but it is very dubious that some minor transgressors are caught while even bigger violators (like 90s Parma, Juventus etc.) walked free.
I think Guardian and FourFourTwo have held anonymous polls where a significant amount of the EPL players stated that drugs is used, at least at a few clubs and somewhere. http://fourfourtwo.com/news/england/116879/default.aspx This mentions 13% and probably that is due to social desirability (a problem of surveys). I guess you're Dutch too and probably you've heard about the general laughter concerning RvP his statements when he said that he gained 4 kilograms of muscles while doing not any extra exercises. http://www.voetbalzone.nl/doc.asp?uid=181982 I think it is plain obvious. One of the biggest weak spots in this matter is that various countries use different regimes - Spain had until recently no law at all. Another weakness is that kids are exempt from this and probably we don't want to know what Iniesta and Messi took during their youth.
Odemwingie gate of this week busts this myth. His club responded with heavy fines, which hopefully keeps the Omerta in place. And today it is showtime as well with Fuentes. Barcelona paid well but he owes money from Madrid.
Maradona drug claims don’t faze Socceroos By Con Stamocostas, 26 May 2011 Con Stamocostas is a Roar Pro What a week in Australian football! Maradona confesses that he and his La Albiceleste teammates took drugs against the Socceroos before a second-leg World Cup qualifier in 1993, and two of the Socceroos participants couldn’t give a flying fox. ... Chatting to the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Sebastian Hassett, Wade said ”I was absolutely shocked when I heard about it. But, wow, in a bizarre way, what a compliment to us. They must have been very scared that we’d knock them out of the World Cup qualifiers.” News that the Argies had been talking happy pills is not any new discovery. Before the World Cup last year I read Jimmy Burns excellent book on Maradona’s Hand of God. In it he claims that during the 1978 World Cup, the eventual winners were as high as Charlie Sheen on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ,Thursday, Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday.
Guys here is a basic drugs that many athletes utilized over years in history: http://www.pharmacytechs.net/blog/top-10-performance-enhancing-drugs/ Top 10 Performance-Boosting Drugs (And Athletes Who Took ‘Em) by Mark Harris ... Let's count down 10. Androstenedione(“Andro”) 9. Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (“HCG”) 8. Human Growth Hormone (“HGH,” Somatotropin) ------- Messi (Zico?) 7. Amphetamines 6. Tetrahydrogestrinone (“THG,” “the Clear”) 5. Ephedrine (Ephedra, Ma Huang) --------------------------- Maradona? 4. Stanozolol (Winstrol) 3. Cocaine (“Coke”)--------------------------------------------- Maradona 2. Testosterone -------------------------------------------------- many footballers 1. Nandrolone (Deca-durabolin)
@JamesBH11 Just a correction; Zico wasn't a HGH taker. He took steroids to boast his physique (but with a 'good' reason; he weighed 37 kilograms at the age of 15 and only 62kg at the age of 19).
Thanks (note that I put a ? next to his name) To be exact: Rumor said Zico at 15yrs old (first seen by the coach) with 1m56 in height and 37kg in weight. However the coach" but God, the boy can play football" By 1980-82: Zico was "known" as 1m72 and weight of 62-66Kg (? )