Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has called on FIFA to introduce blood tests to prevent drug cheats from corrupting the beautiful game.
Till now, football players are only tested for banned substances through urine samples at the training ground or after matches. Sometimes players have to wait for long hours after the game to conduct urine tests, but blood tests would have been quicker according to the Frenchman.
Wenger said as quoted in the press:
“When you have a doping control at Uefa [matches], they do not take blood, they take only urine. I have asked many times in Geneva [for that to be changed].”
Wenger has also raised concerns over the match fixing problems, a disturbance which he compared with tsunami. Last week, Europol announced that around 380 games in Europe has come under the suspicion of rigging, while over 425 match officials, players, staffs, criminals, could be included in in an organised crime syndicate based in Asia.
In fact, a champions League tie between Liverpool and Debrecen is rumoured to be one of the matches involving an English team which might have been fixed though Liverpool have made it clear that they were not contacted.
Wenger has specially spoken about the on-going trial in Madrid of Dr Eufemiano Fuentes who was allegedly at the centre of the Operation Puerto doping ring and has worked with several football teams and players. He added
“The Spanish doctor is in front of the justice just to see how he did doping. They are not interested at all in who he has doped.
“They have found pockets of blood but they don’t even ask to whom does that belong. The justice should go deeper.
When you look at the functions of this doctor, it is quite scary. He was involved in the Olympic team, football team, cycling team.”
Iñaki Badiola, the former Real Sociedad president has also been in the news where he claims that the Spanish club paid for a programme of performance-enhancing drugs in the early 2000’s.
Wenger feels that the time has come where problems like these should be dealt seriously. However, he feels that cheating and match fixing is not an issue in England and has a firm belief that referees are not corrupt in this country.
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