DRUGS STORM HITS FOOTBALL
Russian hackers claim nine players in Britain failed tests
FOOTBALL was dragged into sport’s deepening drugs crisis yesterday.
The latest revelations from Russian hackers Fancy Bears claimed nine footballers playing in Britain were among 160 worldwide who failed drugs tests in 2015. They included three players who took recreational drugs: Jose Baxter, then of Sheffield United, who took ecstasy, plus Jake Livermore, then of Hull, and Aaron McCarey, then of Wolves, who both took cocaine.
The hackers also named former Premier League stars Carlos Tevez, Dirk Kuyt and Gabriel Heinze among 25 players given therapeutic use exemptions at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa — though there is no suggestion of wrongdoing.
Fancy Bears have targeted cycling and athletics in the past year. Sir Bradley Wiggins was forced to defend himself in September 2016 when the group leaked his medical records, which showed the 2012 Tour de France winner was given three exemptions ahead of three big races.
Last month, leaked documents claimed anti- doping chiefs had Sir Mo Farah under suspicion in 2015 before another document six months later cleared him.
IT took two pithy sentences from Russian hackers to send football into turmoil yesterday. ‘ Football players and officials unanimously affirm that this kind of sport is free of doping,’ declared the cyber hackers Fancy Bears.
‘ Our team perceived these numerous claims as a challenge and now we will prove they are lying.’
And so the sport discovered it is not immune from the kind of revelations about drugs which have shattered cycling and athletics over the past 12 months.
The hackers, who are proRussian state, were selective with their football doping leaks. Conspicuous by its absence was any mention of Russian football doping uncovered by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, whose work revealed at least 34 cases that are being investigated by FIFA.
But the fragmented disclosures did debunk the far-fetched notion that football has no problem. They revealed that nine footballers playing in Britain are among 160 worldwide who failed drugs tests in 2015. They posed questions of Argentina’s 2010 World Cup campaign, for which no fewer than five of the squad needed a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) — a medical note allowing the use of an otherwise- banned substance.
Carlos Tevez, Diego Milito, Juan Sebastian Veron, Gabriel Heinze and Walter Samuel all had TUEs ahead of the squad’s disastrous 4-0 quarter- final exit to Germany. Four members of the Germany squad were named in the document. No England players were named. These TUEs do not imply wrongdoing.
The numbers of British-based players who failed tests is not disturbingly long and is dominated by recreational drugs, rather than performance-enhancing products. Fancy Bears don’t name the nine British cases from 2015, but Jose Baxter, then of Sheffield United, took ecstasy, while Jake Livermore (then of Hull City) and Aaron McCarey, then of Wolverhampton Wanderers, both took cocaine.
A fourth player, Brentford’s Alan Judge, was found to have used an inhaler containing prohibited asthma drug salbutamol. He received a warning but no ban.
Emails sent by FA head of integrity Jenni Kennedy to Alexis Weber, FIFA’s head of medical and anti- doping, also revealed that Middlesbrough’s George Friend had received triamcinolone, which can aid rapid weight loss in sport, before the team’s game at Stoke in March this year. But UK AntiDoping ruled that no anti-doping rule violation had occurred after the 29-year-old provided medical evidence that he had been given the corticosteroid for legitimate reasons.
Ms Kennedy’s letters to FIFA also identified Gillingham’s Zesh Rehman as having been found to have received the anabolic steroid oxandrolone before the club’s home match with Southend United in February this year, though he also had a TUE.
Two players from National League North side North Ferriby United tested positive for oxandrolone out of competition and had been suspended ahead of possible charges against them, the FA told FIFA. One eyebrow-raising fact from the 2015 data is 27 Mexicans testing positive for the anabolic steroid clenbuterol. There were also 12 positive tests from Brazil in 2015 but some may have been multiple tests on one player. Analysis of the Brazil national team’s matches in 2015 suggested that the positive tests did not relate to members of the squad.
There is no silver bullet, of the kind the Fancy Bears could lay claim to when they first hacked World Anti-Doping Agency files in September last year and found Sir Bradley Wiggins received TUEs for triamcinolone ahead of three of his most important races in 2011, 2012 and 2013. Wiggins insisted he had used the drug out of medical necessity because of a pollen allergy which aggravated his asthma.
But the scrutiny will still shake football, with the global numbers demonstrating that the financial gains on offer will persuade some to cheat. Detection systems are nowhere near exhaustive.
And this is the sport which saw Manchester City fined a mere £35,000 this year for failing to keep the FA’s drug-testing unit informed of the whereabouts of their players at all times, so officials could carry out random testing.
The FA expressed disappointment at the leaking of confidential information. Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the PFA, said: ‘It is a massive worry that this has been leaked.’ A WADA spokesman said: ‘This criminal activity, which seeks to undermine the TUE program and the work of WADA and its partners in the protection of clean sport, is a clear violation of athletes’ rights.’