91Èȱ¬

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Probably an accident I would have thought, I think the rules are too strict. I hope the Citeh squad are prepared for their subsequent tests on Monday morning!

It strikes me as a bit predictable that this story has already been displaced on the 91Èȱ¬'s sport homepage by the explosive headline that, wait for it, Ferguson is going to appeal against the FA charges.

Still, to be fair to the 91Èȱ¬, that wouldn't have been allowed to happen if a Manchester United player had failed a drugs test.

well done for removing smrfam comment, was never going to last long

3. At 2:26pm on 04 Mar 2011, TheTrawler wrote:
It strikes me as a bit predictable that this story has already been displaced on the 91Èȱ¬'s sport homepage by the explosive headline that, wait for it, Ferguson is going to appeal against the FA charges.

Still, to be fair to the 91Èȱ¬, that wouldn't have been allowed to happen if a Manchester United player had failed a drugs test.
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I think the Man Utd players would have to remember to turn up for drugs tests first of all............

Having met Kolo Toure and having had a chat with him during his arsenal days I believe this was probably an accident. Kolo has always been a very athletic player and although its has been reported that Kolo at times had to watch his weight (apparently leaking from Arsene's own mouth) I fail to believe he would have knowingly taken a banned substance. And whilst rules are rules, people arn't perfect - the question is where do you draw the line...?

Woah there smrfam, Mr Young cannot be labelled as a racist and against islam just for having an opinion on Mr Diouf!!!!!!
Irrespective of creed, colour or religion, he is as dispicable individual who should be banned from playing all levels of football at any level as he has a proven track record or this sort of behaviour. I would imagine 99% of the population also have a very negative view of his actions on and off the field!!!!! And as for Kolo, i hope it all blows over to be a mistake because i loved it at the gunners. Always played with his heart on his sleeve even when he made the occasional error he was proud to play for the club and would be a shame to lose him to any sort of ban.

Wenger says that Toure took his wife's diet pill...hmmmmm. Now I don't doubt for a second that he was intending to take banned substances but with all the testing and how many times athletes have been banned for "cough" medicines, etc. how dumb is the man to not check.

Secondly, a diet pill is taken to help lose weight, losing weight presumably makes Toure more agile and faster on the pitch, thereby enhancing his performance. Looks like he took a performance enhancing substance. Just a thought

As an Arsenal fan I remember Toure suffering quite a lot from malaria towards the end of his career with us. Given that malaria is a reoccurring illness is it plausible that some form of anti-malaria drugs could have contained the banned stimulant?

Good point Kris, I think you might be on to something with that.

It beggars belief that Kolo Toure has taken any banned substance with malice aforethought - surely this has to be a substance contained in an everyday medicine because if it isn't a two year ban isn't enough. I've always thought of golf and football as the cleanest of sports but maybe I live with my head buried in the sand. I genuinely hope not for the sake of any young sportsmen following these events and who hitherto might have been tempted to take the risk!

Arsene Wenger just announced that Toure took his wifes diet pills and has been worried for some time about is weight...bless..!

I work an 60 hour week and still find time to read that my kids cough medicine "contains elements that could cause you to fail a drugs test." I just cannot understand how professional athletes can not know what they are taking. What planet are they on?

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Whilst I sympathise with KT if he has made a genuine mistake, I have no sympathy with him from a legal point of view.

The key point can be broken down in very simple terms....

Every single footballer knows certain substances are banned and drug testing is frequent.

Every footballer knows that the punishments for failing a test is usually severe.

Every footballer is familiar with cases in the past in football, athletics, cycling etc of people who have failed drugs tests then used excuses such as 'herbal' remedies, cold/flu medication, over the counter supplements and so on. They will also be aware that usually these excuses do not save the sportsman/woman in question from a ban.

Every Premiership footballer has easy 24/7 access to a medical team who can very easily check any products ingredients lists against the anti-doping list.


The conclusion is ever so simple... Introduce NOTHING into your diet without checking it first. This may seem a cumbersome burden, but it is the price we have learned must be paid to catch cheats.

No-one can be naive enough to think that whilst almost every other sport has been riddled with drugs related cheating, football, with it's money and fame would be free of such cheating. Therefore the punishments must be strict, and consistent.

Unless KT has a VERY compelling excuse that he can catagorically prove, it simply MUST be a lengthy ban.

Wenger suggests he may have taken one of his wife's diet pills, and as we all are lead to believe Arsene knows......

Either way I'm surprised that this seems to happen so infrequently.

A ban than takes him to summer and eventual replacement in the transfer window by an expensive signing would be my guess. Kompany is the rock for City - replacement will not be difficult task.

"Kris" has come up with point which will be the most likely factor that will save Toure. I honestly don't know whether to think it would be a mistake or not, but i would like to think it was a mistake. However, as always with players like this in the spotlight, he will guilty until proven innocent.

It's not like he's hidden away from having the drugs test like Rio.

It's not like he's hidden away from having the drugs test like Rio.

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Rio actually took another drugs test that day which was clean so there was never any doubt about him cheating. The punishment was for actually missing it in the first place, which given the ridiculous length ban he got is considered worse than actually testing positive in the eyes of the FA. Well if you play for United anyway, the three others that missed their tests were given a slap on the wrists.

We'll see, if he is guilty, what happens to Toure. They'll have to ban him for longer than 9 months surely to seem fair.

@steviemac14

Good point Kris, I think you might be on to something with that.

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Haha, sounds like you've all turned in to the cast of Scooby-Doo.

KT would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling World Anti Doping Agency kids

The clubs doctors would have all the medicine that would not break the Anti-doping laws.

Cant really be any excuse for failing a drugs test. The clubs themselves are extremely strict on what a player can and cannot take.

Take the English athletics team, they get given a list of all the medicines that comply with the doping laws. I would have thought a club like City would do something very similar.

Perhaps KT took it upon himself to cure an illness he may have had.

If he did he should really of known better.

Can you imagine it if it was a United player? Ferdinand proved he wasn't on drugs using hair samples, and still got a 9 month ban

20. At 3:22pm on 04 Mar 2011, ManCitini wrote:

Haha, sounds like you've all turned in to the cast of Scooby-Doo.

KT would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling World Anti Doping Agency kids

**

Haha I smell a murder.....

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It was actually Christian Negouai

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Christian Negouai, the Manchester City midfielder, was handed a fine of £2,000 by the Football Association at a secret hearing for missing a recent drugs test
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WADA is way to strict and encroaches far past what it should look for.

It should be looking for performance enhancing drugs only. All recreational drug use should be exempt. (Unless it directly improves performance at that time.)
WADA is only there to stop cheating, its continuing mission creep is abhorrent.

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"I work an 60 hour week and still find time to read that my kids cough medicine "contains elements that could cause you to fail a drugs test." I just cannot understand how professional athletes can not know what they are taking. What planet are they on? "

Well noone cares about whether you or your kids are in tip top shape though. How do we even know it was him who took it by himself? One of the many nutritionists may have given him something and hes hardly going to argue the finer points of whats in it.

I understand they have to be strict in their policies but it does sometimes seem like they are massively heavy handed over things that are completely trivial.

At the end of the day how much effect is something found in a cold remedy really going to have? Is he all of a sudden going to run through walls and turn back time by flying around the globe backwards?

Theres more advantage to be gained from one player eating a slightly better meal before a game than someone on the opposing team than there is in drinking cough syrup

Be careful Gordon, judging by how the moderators have been behaving on this subject today it's a delicate subject in which facts count for nothing.

On Kolo, and I'm now picking my words incredibly carefully as I'm feeling victimised, City have handled this well so far. Until we learn otherwise I think we have to give him the benefit of the doubt that this was a honest, albeit stupid, mistake.

Christian Negouai, the Manchester City midfielder, was handed a fine of £2,000 by the Football Association at a secret hearing for missing a recent drugs test

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yep, that's what i've got written down here, only i've spelt his name onouhe for some reason

thought negouai failed the test tbh, but anyway, the difference in the coverage and especially the punishment was way way over what you'd expect, even given ferdinand's higher profile

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Ichi_1 wrote:
"I work an 60 hour week and still find time to read that my kids cough medicine "contains elements that could cause you to fail a drugs test." I just cannot understand how professional athletes can not know what they are taking. What planet are they on? "

Well noone cares about whether you or your kids are in tip top shape though. How do we even know it was him who took it by himself? One of the many nutritionists may have given him something and hes hardly going to argue the finer points of whats in it.

I understand they have to be strict in their policies but it does sometimes seem like they are massively heavy handed over things that are completely trivial.

At the end of the day how much effect is something found in a cold remedy really going to have? Is he all of a sudden going to run through walls and turn back time by flying around the globe backwards?

Theres more advantage to be gained from one player eating a slightly better meal before a game than someone on the opposing team than there is in drinking cough syrup

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it's just a teensy weensy bit more complex than that

for example, how do you know that whatever he took wasn't a known mask for some other substance?

"wife's diet pills"
brilliant. i've heard some excuses in my time..

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@kapnag

Ferdinand merely proved that there were no traces of drugs in his newly grown hair after he mysteriously shaved the hair off that he had when he "forgot" about the drugs test.
As most drugs which are on the banned list can only be traced in hair for two weeks if you shave off your hair and are tested two weeks later it is highly unlikely anything will show.
This is the same method I believe Brittany Spears used in her custody case.
I am not saying that he or Brittany did use banned substances but it surely raises a question.
However I should stress that as none of us as far as I am aware are anti-doping officials and as such do not have access to the results of KT's test we should wait until the facts are released before passing judgement.

Theres more advantage to be gained from one player eating a slightly better meal before a game than someone on the opposing team than there is in drinking cough syrup

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Pasta is not on the banned substances list - whatever was found here, is

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@22 - As it happens, Rio offered to have his hair follicles tested -after- he was found guilty and was refused. The date of his missed test was September 23rd 2003. The negative result came in March 2004, a convenient 6 months after the missed test. Anything in Rio's system previous to September 2003 would, of course, not have shown up in the hair follicle test. Either way, he has done his crime and served his time.

I'd expect Kolo's ban & fine to be more severe than Rio's, considering he was caught red-handed so to speak. Of course there are mitigating circumstances he could claim, and the matter of Citeh's large wads of cash (aka influence) however now this news is out in the open I suspect the FA will not be keen to be seen to give in on this subject.

Apparently the positive test has came about from some type of 'dietary supplement'.

How often do footballers playing in England get tested over the course of a season then?

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As it happens, Rio offered to have his hair follicles tested -after- he was found guilty and was refused. The date of his missed test was September 23rd 2003. The negative result came in March 2004,

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That was when the hearing took place - that was a stroke of good fortune that the results came in just as the hearing was due, eh?

Ferdinand merely proved that there were no traces of drugs in his newly grown hair after he mysteriously shaved the hair off that he had when he "forgot" about the drugs test.
As most drugs which are on the banned list can only be traced in hair for two weeks if you shave off your hair and are tested two weeks later it is highly unlikely anything will show.

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Well you better get onto the courts then, cos it's good enough for them. If it is this easy to render the results useless, why is it admissible evidence in court?

I reckon this is an accident. Toure is a model pro, and although its hard to gauge what goes on in these sheltered players' private lives, I doubt Toure has taken a prohibited substance deliberately.

thanks for the blog explaining, i had no idea what it was all about

"It's regularly updated, and always under review. New drugs are being found all the time, and understanding of what effect they can have changes."

This could cause problems for sportsmen, everyone has their favorite cure for coughs, colds, hangovers etc. So a player could have been taking something for years without a problem but because the authorities find that there is a enhancing side affect they add it to the band list.

The player takes it as usual when he gets a sniffle without a second thought because when he first started taking it he checked and it was fine and then suddenly he fails a dope test.

Why have other comments appeared (after moderation) when mine is still not visable???

Great forum for debate!!!

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@43

It is admissible in court because it is the only evidence that they have at the time. Plus I am sure it is fairly difficult for the courts to trawl through the bins of all the barbers in Manchester on the off chance that they find some hair that used to belong to Rio.
The courts can only work with what they have available to them at the time and as he had shaved his hair they could not take a sample from the hair he removed.
Logical really.

I'd like a stand to be taken against players taking performance inhibiting drugs.

Maybe Toure should claim he ate some Spanish meat like Contador did (but then again he hasn't got a government to back him up on it ...)

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Can you pls explain why comment 39 has not yet been moderated?! I put a lot of effort into that and there was no swearing or libel??

What a joke

Meanwhile Kapnag can continue with his Utd biased comments without riposte. Great debate

Brandyrecovery, with 3 messages in the space of 2 minutes, perhaps your powers of deduction will tell you the moderators aren't happy with something in it?

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Such sympathy for a man who FAILED a drugs test when RIO missed one and 7 years later your still banging on about it amazing MUFC

Being an Arsenal fan, I have always had a lot of time for Kolo Toure and I really cannot see him deliberately taking any banned substance. However, as has been pointed out, it is his duty as a professional sportsman to check what he is taking. I have no doubt Citeh, with all their squillions, have access to the best medical minds in the country, probably the world, so there really is no excuse for him not having checked that anything he was taking (be it his wife's diet pills or not) was ok. I would say that it seems he is guilty of being naive and monumentally stupid but not of deliberate cheating.

Why isn't comment 37 moderated? No breech of house rules or anything?

Clearly this blog isn't really reactively moderated.

Yes and I don't understand why. I basically said that
Ferdinand was harshly treated
The FA did so to prevent themselves from accusations of bias
Football doesn't have a drug problem
WADA should keep their nose out.

I think the moderators have gone to ther pub cos it can't take half an hour to sort that out!

Why are some comments moderated reactively and some not - even from the same poster?

Are we not in danger of giving footballers too much benefit of the doubt. He is paid nearly £200k a week to do something that the average person would love to do, and if one of the "drawbacks" of this is that he has be meticulous about his diet and any supplements that he takes, I think thats the least any football fan can expect.

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Easy as it is. These guys have team Doctors. Consult him if you are ill, consult him if you want to loose weight. He should be able to prescribe "legal" drugs and supplements.

No defence whatsoever.

And if a Manu player tests positive, he will be in the same boat.

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Brandyrecovery wrote:

Sorry Chic, it's you that doesn't understand the logic. Ris missed the test (the rest of ur points are just waffle).

Missing a test needs to have the same penalty as being caught for the worst substance. otherwise, people will miss tests rather than take tests and suffer punishments?

Comprende??
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I agree, good point.

I believe the City fans will support Toure through this setback and with the emergence of Lescott (playing much better) over the last month City should have adequate cover.

Not sure what some of you lot are on about re Ferdinand

the player took an official drugs test the following day (24/09/03) and passed it, just as he had passed every single routine test before that and just as he has passed every single routine test since then as well

@58 - The two hours in which Rio was outside of the training complex was ample time to clear and re-fill his bladder of urine, so by the time he had returned there would be no clear way to tell whether or not the urine sample he produced was the same.

It's a shame this blog has been hijacked by United fans with their 'ABU' paranoia.

the moderation thing is frustrating!

I said you lot cos I've got one guy saying it was doctored hair provided for the test, you saying "it's only a maximum of 30 days it works for anyway". I take it you have records, including the length of hair tested, to come out so convinced that it was a "staged" test

Also, your 6 months argument that you started with is incorrect. 6 months after October is April. And you're ignoring Rio's pleading with the testers for him to come back and take the test (as his phone records show). Not the sharpest tactic if you were trying to get out of a test, wouldn't you agree?

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I personally dont believe that a professional footballer earning 100,000/week if not over would risk everything over a banned substance.

I reckon it was a mistake and after all, we all do make mistakes

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What does my head in more is how many times does Wenger have to stick his nose into affairs NOTHING to do with him? Sick of it, on his high horse all the time then turns a convenient blind eye to anything that he doesn't want to see by his own players. Wenger stick to your own team!

@73 - The point is no one really knows his actions in those two hours other than he was in a shopping area in Manchester, that is the exact reason a re-test a couple of hours later would not have been allowed.

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Rio got a bigger ban than Mutu did. Read into that what you will.

If Kolo is concerned about his weight, do some training and watch what you eat? Some "athlete"

Can anyone shed some light on how often players are tested? I assume they are still testing urine and not blood samples?

David James said in 2009 that 1600 players from the entire football league, womens & youth football were being tested each year. That, to my mind, is not really enough.

Arsene Wenger also said in 2009 that some of his players had never been tested in the 5-6 years they had been at the club - seeing that Toure had been with Arsenal since 2002 that may have even put him in that bracket.

Perhaps FIFA could re-invest some of that 1.2bn they have in the bank into stricter anti-doping regs. But that is not in anyone's interests so perhaps not.

Is his wife overweight?

So many comments on how sincere and nice he is.. But he's obviously a complete idiot!

Why would he take his wifes diet pills?? (if that really is the case) If he wanted to lose weight he should have gone to his club and request it. They could have then decided if it would benefit him and if so adapt his training or put him on medication checked over by the right people so it doesn't contain any banned substances..

This should be simple for any professional footballer (especially one at the top of the game!). So there is NO excuse whatsoever!

If Ferdinand can get a 9 month ban for not turning up to a test then someone of just a high profile should get a similar or longer ban for actually failing one.. common sense surely?!

A positive B test and it should be maximum ban under football's already weak doping rules.

These are people who are paid astronomic sums as professional sportsmen and they should not under any circumstances be taking anyone else's pills, even the wife's.

I really am dumbfounded by the apparent leniency shown by some on this blog - it's a very simple and easy-to-follow rule and needs to be strictly enforced - more strictly than is currently allowed under current football rules - in order to protect the integrity of the game.

Rank stupidity really should be no excuse.

#26, couldn't agree more. The laudible goal of keeping athletics free of performance-enhancing drugs has become in the US at least an excuse to go on fishing expeditions in children's bloodstreams just to see what turns up. It's particularly galling since the US Bill of Rights specifically bans such searches without a warrant. Surely this is utter madness. Yes, you have to test for performance-enhancing drugs, but no, this can't include drugs which have never been found to be performance-enhancing, even if they happen to be illegal.

I'm also mystified how they come up with these lists, and believe they ought to let substances both common and legal go unless unless it's at least conceivable that there could be a problem. Has anyone ever won a gold medal or scored three goals because they took a diet pill or smoked a joint?

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This seems to follow closely the Shane Warne excuse which was he was given the pill by his mother.

Doesn't really work.

I imagine that there is a list of excuses for various positive findings, ie it was in my cough medicine, it was in my meat, the dog gave me one of his worming tablets and soon.

IF kolo took this pill and did not know about the banned substance then there is no case and life goes on but that is a big if

Dear lord, Trigger happy mods......?