The Sunday Times reveals a potential scandal via the recording of a British doctor: he boasts of having provided doping products to 150 athletes.
A new case of large-scale doping? the Sunday Times published this Sunday a report incriminating a London doctor, Mark Bonar. In a video recorded without his knowledge, he claims to have provided doping products to 150 British athletes. Football players from four major English clubs – Leicester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Birmingham -, Tour de France cyclists, tennis players, a boxer and a cricketer would be among the sportsmen concerned.
According to the weekly, EPO, growth hormone and steroids have been prescribed for six years to these athletes whose “performance improvement has been phenomenal.” Two years ago, Mark Bonar had been the subject of a closed denunciation of an athlete with the anti-doping authorities Reason invoked: the doctor was not affiliated with any sporting authority.
Football clubs in turmoil
“I don’t really advertise … I don’t want the media to look at this, you know, and fall on me,” the doctor said in the report. Failed, in view of the scale of the scandal that is looming. The English media have flocked to the subject, so much so that the football clubs of Premier League (the English Premier League) incriminated have already reacted.
“This information is false and unfounded, says one side of Chelsea. The club has never called on Mark Bonar, and is not aware of any players who have been monitored or have received prescriptions from him. The players are regularly and rigorously tested by the competent authorities. ” Arsenal and Leicester deny with the same virulence. For its part, the Birmingham club is more cautious, and awaits more information.
More than questionable “information”
The “revelations” of Sunday Times are indeed, and so far, only based on the claims of a dubious anti-aging doctor. The athlete who had denounced him had subsequently contacted the Sunday Times, who masqueraded as an athlete struggling with recovery and performance.
The whole scene was filmed on a hidden camera. A very questionable process from an ethical point of view, and which does not provide any concrete proof, but which immediately put the athletes concerned, in particular footballers, under the spotlight of anti-doping.
If the scandal were to be confirmed, it could be resounding for the world of football, a sport for the moment more or less spared from (known) doping problems. But in the meantime, the British weekly seems to have forgotten to confirm its sources by releasing shaky information with great blows of buzz techniques.
The latest #dopingscandal revelations about sports stars will shock you to the core https://t.co/EwD63Hjpft pic.twitter.com/rqWtnP5Mlr
– The Sunday Times (@thesundaytimes) April 3, 2016
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