Arsenal have responded to claims in today’s Sunday Times that certain players have treated by a doctor who admitted prescribing performance enhancing drugs to over 150 sports stars.
Dr Mark Bonar was videoed secretly by the newspaper, which covers the story in huge detail (go buy a copy!), and he claims to have ‘treated’ Arsenal players, amongst others with, ‘with banned substances such as erythropoietin (EPO), steroids and human growth hormone, and the sports performance improvements were “phenomenal”‘.
The article states:
Bonar claims he has treated Arsenal, Chelsea, Leicester City and Birmingham City players. Despite Bonar’s claims, The Sunday Times has no independent evidence Bonar treated the players. There is no evidence the clubs were aware of Bonar’s relationship with any players or drug use by them.
Responding to those claims, Arsenal said: “Our players are well aware of what is expected. We strictly adhere to all guidelines set by the World Anti-Doping Agency and our first team players participate in approximately 50 random drugs tests during each football season.
“None of our players has ever failed such a test.”
There are no names given, for obvious reasons, and it’s unclear if he’s talking about current or past players.
Arsene Wenger has spoken numerous times about doping in football, and the last time he was so outspoken, UEFA sent a delegation to carry out tests on the Arsenal players.
Almost every other sport has a problem with PEDs, so it’s inconceivable that football is as clean as we like to think. Indeed, Dinamo Zagreb player, Arijan Ademi, failed a dope test this season, after we’d played them in the Champions League.
We’ll have to watch this story carefully.
Obviously a T*ttenham fan.
Adding dope to Tottenham would be like whitewashing icebergs or spraying perfume on lavender bushes…
There’s no chance any player took performance enhancing drugs between January and March, considering none of our players actually played well.
Quite a few played like dopes though.
For me……… The powers that be are worried that arsenal are gonna win the league. Everything is being used to destabilise our club including this trash. The worst thing is our fans fall for the crap and are easily misled. Stick together like our motto and get behind the team AND our manager. As long as we beat west ham next week, the league’s ours……… (We play 3 matches in the time that Leicester and spuds play 2 each which they won’t win). We also have city’s number remember. Check fixtures carefully, spuds are gone as they will struggle to… Read more »
“The powers that be are worried that arsenal are gonna win the league.” What “powers that be”? Why would they be worried that we’re going to win the league? If they’re “powers” and they’re worried we’re going to win the league for some contrived reason, why use such a weak attempt to destabilise us and why name other clubs? If by “powers that be” you mean the EPL itself, or the FA, or Sky or anyone else like that, I strongly suggest they don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling donut who wins the league provided the money rolls… Read more »
I don’t think anybody is worried about Arsenal winning the league…
Jose, is that you?
I don’t think its just sport where there’s a DOPE problem
Just say no.
Well we know the growth hormones were definitely for Santi, at least 😉
Really fucking hope Leicester were pumping their players full of this shit, and they get relegated, or liquidated, or just cease existing.
Arsenal cheating with performance enhancing drugs, and still not being able to win anything would be the most Arsenal thing ever.
Spat my tea out laughing at that one
With the consistently horrendous injury record we have I would be asking for my money back. I have no doubt that it exists in the game though; why is it that certain teams always have their best players fit all the time and we can’t ever seem to play the same team on a regular basis?
Maybe they have a better sports science department than we do?
Yes. Just like Lance Armstrong did.
How many doping tests did Rio Ferdinand miss before he received a ban? More than one of I remember correctly and then it all went quiet.
Well, we do have a history of buying players who are injury prone. It seems to be a gamble Arsene particularly likes. We’ve also been unlucky with a lot of high profile impact injuries. Wilshere, Diaby, Ramsey (who recovered, but who easily could have had his career ruined), Eduardo. I am not sure there is another club of our stature who has suffered the same number of potentially career-ending impact injuries. So I think it’s just a combination of a bunch of things. We sign injury prone players, we’ve been unlucky with impact injuries, and some other clubs don’t sign… Read more »
The other surprising thing that bothers me is the lack of match fixing allegations in football. Maybe football is clean… Hahahahaha
Will there ever be any names revealed
The whole ST story is massively oversold. I have it on good authority that they’ve had the story since October but haven’t been able to find any corroborating evidence. The doctor involved seems to be overselling himself to athletes (I don’t doubt he is doping some) using an exaggerated client list as sales argument. If you read the article, you’ll notice that there’s no “England star” or “World cup winner” or even “PL Champion” line in it, the standard method of underlining the importance of the story without naming names. I have no doubt there is a huge amount of… Read more »
PEDs for Arsenal players…..to finish 4th, with 2 billion injuries a season?
Yeah Marky Mark. Feel the vibration.
Dr Boner
To be fair, with spuds phenomenal fitness levels and lack of injuries this season along with practically zero injuries for Leicester I would be ‘randomly’ homing in on their two training grounds with my test kit if I was a drug test officer.
Whatever Chelsea and Arsenal have apparently taken clearly hasn’t enhanced performance so why go for the cold trail?
I always suspect that some players develop vague long term injuries because Wenger gets all his players blood tested and doesn’t want to put out a side that contains players who may fail a drug test. It’s like he says, it’s odd that not one player in the World Cup (or at Arsenal etc gets caught). The emotional intelligence of the lesser educated millionaire footballer must be extremely high to never give in to the obvious pressures to take either recreational or performance enhancing drugs. It’s just a suspicion but I think Wenger holds his players to higher standards than… Read more »
Is no one going to make the obvious “bonar” joke?
I am sure a few of our referees will appear in the Panama Papers!
It is just me or is anyone else picturing Dr Nick from The Simpsons??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_w_n-8w3IQ
How the f*** could anyone accuse Arsenal players of using steroids. Other than Alexis, Giroud, and maybe Welbz, I personally have more muscle mass than most of our players. And I’m a girl.