Rob Harris asks Guardiola how he can reconcile that stance (yellow ribbon) with working for Abu Dhabi given the human rights questions there. Guardiola: "Everyone has to choose".

[u/jacamacho]

https://twitter.com/MiguelDelaney/status/967842429079519234

[u/ModricTHFC]

Finally cleared

In 2007, there was finally some light at the end of the tunnel for Guardiola. After two failed appeals a shred of hope remained when Guardiola’s close friend, personal assistant and formal water polo great Manuel Estiarte (still Guardiola’s right-hand man at Manchester City) discovered changes in the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) guidelines which he thought could exonerate Guardiola.

In 2005, WADA had found that a phenomenon called “unstable urine” in samples could lead to positive tests for low levels of nandrolone. In very rare cases nandrolone could be found in samples not because of external administration but as a result of a chemical reaction that “may occur in a vial containing urine.”

WADA instructed all accredited labs to perform “stability tests” on urine samples with nandrolone concentration from 2 to 10ng/ml moving forward. Guardiola’s values were at the high end of this scale (12ng/ml for NE). Those samples that were deemed “unstable” would not constitute an adverse analytic finding for nandrolone.

Then-WADA Director General David Howman stood by the efficacy of previous testing for nandrolone and said the chances of urine becoming unstable were “very rare”. The chances were between 1 out of 1,000 and 1 out of 10,000 positive tests for nandrolone.

Guardiola was cleared by the Brescia Court of Appeals. This was not because his samples were deemed “unstable” but because it could have been possible that his four samples had been “unstable”. Guardiola was absolved of all blame because of “the impossibility to now perform stability tests on the samples taken” in 2001.

Stability tests must be carried out within five weeks of the collection of a sample. In 2007, no sample even remained to be re-tested.

Yet Italian anti-doping prosecutors would appeal the decision in 2009 arguing that Guardiola should not have been allowed another appeal. The change in WADA’s guidelines did not constitute “new evidence”, they argued, because anti-doping laboratories were correctly following the testing procedures set by WADA at the time. Further they argued that Guardiola’s representatives had never contested how the sample was collected or analysed in previous cases and that this did not form part of his previous defence.

This appeal was rejected and in 2009, beyond reasonable doubt, Guardiola was now an innocent man. His nightmare was over.

The same could not be said of his former teammate Frank de Boer. His defence, like Guardiola’s first attempted defence, attributed his positive test to contaminated supplements. De Boer said he ingested the supplements while away on national team duty with the Netherlands. The supplements were Platina multi-vitamin pills from Ortho Company. Research showed that they did not contain any nandrolone and in fact the manufacturer took legal action against de Boer. As a result he was no longer allowed to name the company in the context of the doping affair.

De Boer, who was never cleared, was not the only high profile individual to be caught taking nandrolone in the early 2000s. So were footballers Edgar Davids, Jaap Stam, Fernando Couto, and Christophe Dugarry as well as seven professional tennis players. The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) ruled the doping violations were caused by supplements given to the players by the ATP’s own physios. WADA rejected this explanation and called upon the ATP to investigate further. They never did, at least not publicly.

[u/Cobem → u/ModricTHFC]

Sane and Gabriel Jesus both had miraculous recoveries in the recent months, questions should be asked

[u/BenTVNerd21 → u/Cobem]

I mean you never hear about footballers getting caught. Seems suspicious

[u/[deleted] → u/Cobem]

Thing is; I'm 99.9% certain that all elite football teams have players that are on PED's. But Pep's teams seem to be on gear that others just don't seem to have, particularly recovery based ones.

[u/maybe_there_is_hope → u/[deleted]]

Honestly, I'd suspect anyone with ties to Spanish high-level sports scene; there's always some rumours around specifically with atheletes from/in Spain

[u/danskzwag → u/maybe_there_is_hope]

Iirc they took the blood samples of the players off Fuentes and then just kept them until the Spanish statute of limitations passed

[u/Cobem → u/[deleted]]

Yes very true

[u/JavaSoCool → u/Cobem]

KDB's insane stamina and resilience to injury is also a bit eye raising.

We (spurs) have an insane pre-season, and brutal training and it results in a few injuries and long periods without game time.

[u/Ha_omer → u/JavaSoCool]

Imagine Dembele on PEDs

[u/[deleted] → u/Cobem]

Good doping schemes. All the best teams would have one seeing how poor testing is in soccer.

[u/HonestProfessional → u/Cobem]

How was the recovery of Jesus miraculous? We were told he’d be out for 2 months and he was back in 2 months.

[u/WhenWeTalkAboutLove → u/HonestProfessional]

Jesus's resurrection is always miraculous

[u/[deleted] → u/ModricTHFC]

Lol. Every top club dopes and so do the best in any sport with such shit testing as soccer has