"Well, what do you think? Do you really believe that there's no one out there in football taking dope, do you really think that football is the only socalled clean sport, when it is obvious to anyone now that track athletes, cyclists, swimmers, skiers, weightlifters and who knows who else systematically resort to performance enhancing products?"
The man asking the above uncomfortable question is Czech Zdenek Zeman, formerly coach to Serie A sides Foggia, Lazio, AS Roma and, for a brief period this season, Napoli. He made the above statement during an interview with your correspondent at Roma's Trigoria training centre in December 1998.
Two and a half years later, Zeman's name is on the minds of a lot of people. Back in the autumn of 1998, he prompted a major rumpus in Italian soccer by suggesting that doping practises were widespread within the game.
He even had the temerity to point the finger at some of the Italian game's most famous names such as aristocratic Turin club, Juventus, and two of its stars, past and present, namely Gianluca Vialli and Alessandro Del Piero. When the fuss had subsided, however (and after Zeman had been sued by various "offended" parties), nothing very concrete remained.
Notwithstanding a series of investigations by Turin-based magistrate, Raffaele Guariniello, no party (club or player) ended up on trial, either in front of the state judiciary or the Football Federation's Disciplinary Commission. Had Zeman got it all wrong?
Zeman came to mind this week with the news that Holland and Juventus midfielder, Edgar Davids, had failed a dope test after a Serie A game versus Udinese on March 4th. Davids tested "non-negative" to the anabolic steroid, norandrosterone (nandrolene) and, what is more, he was the eighth Italian player in Serie A or B to fail such a test this season.
Among the other players are Portugal and Lazio central defender Fernando Couto, Bari and Belgian under-21 goalkeeper, JeanFrancois Gillet, as well as Salvatore Monaco and Christian Bucchi of Perugia and three players from Serie B sides Piacenza and Pescara.
Furthermore, the eight footballers are just some of the 75 Italy-based athletes, from various sports, who have tested either positive or at a dangerously high level for norandrosterone in tests carried out between March 1st 2000 and February 28th this year.
For the time being, the position of Couto and Davids remains uncertain but both could yet find themselves facing a lengthy ban. Perugia players Monaco and Bucchi, as well as Pescara's Andrea Da Rold, have been suspended for 16 months following their "positive" tests, back in October and September respectively.
While Juventus were yesterday awaiting formal confirmation of Davids' failed test, Lazio were busy defending both themselves and their player, Couto. In essence, the Lazio line of defence is a lack of "fraudulent intention" in a context where much "confusion" reigns since nandrolene can be produced by the athlete's body and since it has found its way into both "integrators" and the food chain.
OTHERS are less convinced. Dr Sandro Donati, a former member of Italian sport's Anti-Doping Commission, told the Irish Times yesterday that recent events would appear "to prove Zeman right". He believes that professional footballers, and not just in Italy, regularly use anabolic steroids in combination with growth hormones in order to improve on the stamina, endurance and physical strength that allows them to run hard for 90 minutes.
Legitimate worries are certainly raised by the fact that eight players have tested positive for nandrolone since last September. Given that only two players per team are routinely tested after Serie A games, how many others have gone untraced?
Even though Turin magistrate Guariniello is still at work, having added the most recent nandrolone cases to his voluminous files, the possibility of legal convictions (as opposed to a Football Federation ban) remains uncertain. The football community itself gave an indication of its view of the issue at a meeting of Serie A and B club doctors at the Federation centre of Coverciano, Florence earlier this month.
Among the many proposals put forward at that meeting was a call for the permitted level of nandrolone in Italian football to be raised from two up to five nanograms per millilitre, a proposal in contrast with current IOC guidelines. In other words, lift the level and no one will fail the test. Is the football establishment about to turn a blind eye?
