Contrary to sports like cycling, weight-lifting, and track and field, performance-enhancing drugs (doping) haven’t been commonly associated with Football due to insufficient evidence. However, similar to many team sports, football isn’t entirely immune to its share of drug-related issues. A notable case in point is Diego Maradona, who faced a ban from the 1990-91 Serie A season after being found to have used cocaine during a match. Maradona encountered yet another ban three years later when ephedrine use came to light during the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
The utilization of performance-enhancing drugs (“doping”) seems to be rare in football. Nevertheless, there have been instances where football stars were caught in the act.
Dope Premier League stars
In the 2002–03 season, Rushden & Diamonds goalkeeper Billy Turley was given a mere warning when found to have taken the anabolic steroid nandrolone. However, he later faced a six-month ban after failing a test for cocaine, which is categorized as a recreational drug. This made him the sole player, up to that point, to be banned after a domestic league match.
Moving forward, Middlesbrough’s Abel Xavier received an 18-month ban from football by UEFA in November 2005. The ban was imposed after he tested positive for anabolic steroids (specifically, dianabol) after a UEFA Cup match on September 29, 2005. Notably, he became the first player in Premier League History to be suspended due to the use of performance-enhancing substances, rather than recreational drugs.
In September 2003, Rio Ferdinand skipped a drug test, resulting in a substantial consequence: an eight-month ban was imposed on him.
Adrian Mutu, a player from Chelsea, faced a ban during the 2003–04 season after failing a cocaine test. The suspension lasted seven months and led to his release from Chelsea.
Shifting to more recent times in Premier League history, a controversy emerged in 2016 involving Liverpool’s Mamadou Sakho after a UEFA Europa League match. Sakho was accused of using a prohibited fat-burning drug. However, upon further investigation, UEFA chose to dismiss all charges against him.
Serie A’s Dramatico
During the swinging 1960s, Inter Milan enjoyed its prime era of triumph, famously referred to as “La Grande Inter” or “Great Inter,” when Helenio Herrera took the helm as their manager. Under his guidance, the team claimed an impressive seven trophies. In a surprising turn, Ferruccio Mazzola, a former Inter player from that period, came forward in 2004 with some eyebrow-raising allegations.
He accused Herrera of distributing performance-enhancing substances, including amphetamines, among the players. These supplements were even given to substitute players who often served as willing testers for new pills. Mazzola shared a curious anecdote of how Herrera went the extra mile to ensure the pills were ingested – by dissolving them in coffee, a practice that became known as “Caffè di Herrera” or “Herrera’s Coffee.”
Fast forward to 2010, Inter took legal action against Mazzola, aiming to challenge his claims. Unfortunately for the club, they lost the case, with the court siding with Mazzola’s version of events. His motivation for speaking out was driven by the grave health conditions and untimely deaths of several former teammates. Among them were Giuliano Taccola, the team’s captain Armando Picchi (who tragically passed away at 36 due to cancer), Marcello Giusti, Carlo Tagnin, Mauro Bicicli, Ferdinando Miniussi, Enea Masiero, and Pino Longoni. Mazzola suspected that the administered drugs might have contributed to their suffering.
In a twist, Mazzola’s brother Sandro, initially in denial about the whole affair, eventually came clean in 2015, admitting that the incidents did indeed take place.
Another instance was in September 2003, when Serie A witnessed the ban of Manuele Blasi from Parma after he failed a nandrolone test.
According to the Gazzetta dello Sport, suspicion loomed over the deaths of four former Fiorentina players spanning 19 years. Pino Longoni, aged 63, succumbed to an irreversible degenerative ailment that constricted the arteries in his brain; Bruno Beatrice, aged 39, lost his battle with leukemia in 1987; Nello Saltutti, aged 56, passed away after a heart attack in 2003; and Ugo Ferrante, aged 59, fell victim to tonsil cancer in November 2004.
The Italian newspaper implied that these ailments might have been linked to the administration of Cortex and Micoren, allegedly by Fiorentina’s medical team during the 1970s. However, Turin prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello, a key figure in Italy’s anti-doping efforts since 1998, noted that Gazzetta’s claims about the deaths possibly being connected to doping were speculative due to the absence of concrete evidence.
In 1996, Juventus clinched a 1996 UEFA Champions League Final triumph. However, this triumph comes with a twist of controversy due to allegations of doping. It gets even more interesting – in November 2004, the club’s doctor, Riccardo Agricola, found himself facing a 22-month stint in prison and a €2,000 fine for a sporty fraud charge. This was all about providing performance-enhancing goodies, particularly EPO, to players during the span of 1994 to 1998.
A leading hematologist, Giuseppe d’Onofrio, threw in his two cents, expressing a “practically certain” belief that midfield dynamos Antonio Conte and Alessio Tacchinardi had dipped their toes into the EPO pool to overcome brief spells of anemia. But that’s not all – the intrigue continues. d’Onofrio also speculated that it’s “very probable” that seven other players – Alessandro Birindelli, Alessandro Del Piero, Didier Deschamps, Dimas, Paolo Montero, Gianluca Pessotto, and Moreno Torricelli – might have taken tiny EPO doses.
Kicking Up a Doping Wirbelwind
Football in former East Germany took a different route compared to other sports when it came to doping. Unlike the government-operated doping programs in various sports, football didn’t have such a system. The reason behind this was the sport’s lack of international success, which didn’t make doping seem justified. Instead, instances of doping were sporadic in football, but measures were eventually taken in 1985 to counter this.
A Former coach in the German Bundesliga named Peter Neururer made a striking claim against his former club Schalke 04. He alleged that during the late 1980s, nearly all players at the club were using Captagon, an illicit substance that’s prohibited in many countries, including Germany. This serious accusation was confirmed by Jens Lehmann, a young player at the time. In response, the German Football Association asked Neururer to reveal the names of the players involved in the doping scandal. However, Schalke 04 vehemently denied these allegations.
In a separate revelation, two former team doctors from Eintracht Braunschweig admitted to administering Captagon to players during the 1970s and ’80s. Interestingly, Germany’s national team head coach at the time, Joachim Löw, maintained that he had never encountered any instances of drug abuse in German football.
Doping tests have been an integral part of the Bundesliga since 1988. After specific matches, a pair of players are chosen randomly to undergo urine testing. During the 2006–07 season, these tests were conducted following 241 out of 612 first and second-division matches. Over the years, since 1995, a total of 15 players from the Bundesliga’s top two divisions have faced accusations of doping-related offenses.
Oder more doping Instances
In another instance, the head of the East German sports medicine department, Manfred Höppner, pointed fingers at BFC Dynamo and 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig, alleging that these teams were involved in doping. According to him, during their European Cup and UEFA Cup matches in October 1983, tests indicated elevated levels of Amphetamine and Methamphetamine in 13 out of 19 BFC Dynamo players. These substances were allegedly administered just two to three days prior. In comparison, slight traces were found in some players from 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig. Another revelation came to light about the use of the anabolic steroid Depot-Turanabol at 1. FC Union Berlin, spanning several years. In April 1985, two players from the same team tested positive for Depot-Turanabol.
Falko Götz, a former BFC Dynamo player who later became a Bundesliga coach for Hertha BSC and 1. FC Nürnberg denied direct knowledge of doping but confessed to receiving substances labeled as vitamins during his time at the club. In contrast, Gerd Weber, a former player of SG Dynamo Dresden, was one of the rare voices admitting to doping in East German football. He revealed that East German footballers regularly took white pills before international matches. As per allegations, SG Dynamo Dresden players were given psycho-stimulant Oxytocin before their European Cup match against Partizan Belgrade in September 1979.
In August 2013, a revealing study titled “Doping in Germany from 1950 to Today” came to light, shedding an intriguing spotlight on Germany’s sports history. This comprehensive study was conducted by Berlin’s Humboldt University and received financial backing from the Institute of Sports Science. One of its fascinating revelations centered around the 1954 World Cup campaign.
According to the study, a subset of Germany’s national team players had been administered injections during the tournament. Within this comprehensive research, Erik Eggers, an expert in the preanabolic era, discredited the notion that these injections contained vitamin C and instead postulated the likelihood that they contained Pervitin.
Significantly, the study also unearthed the prevalence of Pervitin, a stimulant extensively employed by soldiers during World War 2, within the landscape of German football during the 1940s. The sheer magnitude of the study was evident in its 800-page length and the substantial investment of 450,000 Euros
French Football Revelations
Marcel Desailly, Jean-Jacques Eydelie, Chris Waddle, and Tony Cascarino have spilled the beans on a rather eye-opening aspect of their time at Olympique Marseille. According to their accounts, the team was no stranger to doping. They confessed to having taken stimulants before their pivotal matches, which evidently gave them an energy boost and heightened focus. In the remarkable context of the 1993 Champions League Final, Eydelie shared that every player except Rudi Völler received a series of injections.
Interestingly, this wasn’t exactly a revelation for Arsène Wenger, who was hardly surprised. According to him, the assumption was that some such practices were par for the course in France. Adding another layer to the intrigue, both Desailly and Cascarino claimed that none other than Bernard Tapie, the president himself, was in the mix of distributing pills and injections.
In line with these accounts, the author Mondenard also chimed in, noting the prevalence of “injections for everyone.” While Tapie didn’t spill all the beans, he did admit that some players indeed indulged in Captagon.
Quite the revealing tale from the inner workings of the football world, wouldn’t you agree?
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