Seven players test positive for recreational drugs

LONDON (Reuters) - Seven football players tested positive for a variety of recreational drugs over the past year, a Football Association (FA) official has said.

Figures in UK Sports' annual anti-doping report released today revealed five positive tests for stimulants, two for heroin and eight for marijuana among soccer players.

FA official Alan Hodson said the positive tests involved seven players, some of whom tested positive for more than one substance.

One thousand random tests will be carried out in the forthcoming season, Hodson said on Wednesday.

Does this surprise anyone? I've always been surprised there haven't been more cases of drugged footballers and put it down to lack of adequate testing.
Just as well they aren't tested for alcohol!

-- Anonymous, July 26, 2000

Answers

Presumably if they can tell when a performance has been enhanced, they must be able to test performance levels themselves....they would be worth seeing before we sign someone ;-)

They used to be very scientific at Dynamo Kyiv. Amazing programme about how they used to select footballers. They identified the physical attributes that their most effective players had and simply turned anyone away without them. Amazingly successful oddly enough, but I'm not sure how well swapping the seahorses for a swastike would go down on Tyneside.

-- Anonymous, July 26, 2000