What a surprise, Italian football has been accused of systematic performance-enhancing drug-taking, mafia involvement and match-fixing. Nothing new there to be honest, but the details and the name it came from certainly add weight to the years of outcry. In a huge shock (sarcasm), all these revelations comes out with the release of a book....
From the excellent WhoAteAllThePies site, here's a taste of the article...
Dodgy IV Drips, Mafia Break-Ins & Match-Fixing
Former Argentina international Matias Almeyda has written an autobiography which is currently being serialised in Gazzetta dello Sport, in which the midfielder – who is currently head coach at River Plate – makes some fairly scandalous claims about the state of the inner machinations of Italian football, including intravenous doping, pandemic match-fixing and mafia intimidation.
Almeyda spent eight years in Italy, wherein he turned out for Lazio, Parma, Brescia and Inter Milan.
In the interest of laziness on our part, here’s the direct copy+paste quote from the passage of ‘Almeyda: Life and Soul’ which features in the lastest issue of La Gazzetta dello Sport, as transcribed by ESPN:
Speaking of his time with Parma, he talks about being given what he now believes were drugs – a story reinforced by television footage of Fabio Cannavaro taking on intravenous fluids the night before a match.
“At Parma we were given an IV drip before games,” he wrote. “They said it was a mixture of vitamins but before entering the field I was able to jump up as high as the ceiling. Players do not ask questions, but then in the following years there are cases of former players dying from heart problems, suffering from muscular issues and more. I think it is the consequence of the things that have been given to them.”
Read the full article here
I'm certainly not denying these things have happened, it's just always curious how all the details of these events are only ever released when there's money to be made by the person with the accusations. Or perhaps Italian regulators have no interest in proving these cases?
From the excellent WhoAteAllThePies site, here's a taste of the article...
Dodgy IV Drips, Mafia Break-Ins & Match-Fixing
Former Argentina international Matias Almeyda has written an autobiography which is currently being serialised in Gazzetta dello Sport, in which the midfielder – who is currently head coach at River Plate – makes some fairly scandalous claims about the state of the inner machinations of Italian football, including intravenous doping, pandemic match-fixing and mafia intimidation.
Almeyda spent eight years in Italy, wherein he turned out for Lazio, Parma, Brescia and Inter Milan.
In the interest of laziness on our part, here’s the direct copy+paste quote from the passage of ‘Almeyda: Life and Soul’ which features in the lastest issue of La Gazzetta dello Sport, as transcribed by ESPN:
Speaking of his time with Parma, he talks about being given what he now believes were drugs – a story reinforced by television footage of Fabio Cannavaro taking on intravenous fluids the night before a match.
“At Parma we were given an IV drip before games,” he wrote. “They said it was a mixture of vitamins but before entering the field I was able to jump up as high as the ceiling. Players do not ask questions, but then in the following years there are cases of former players dying from heart problems, suffering from muscular issues and more. I think it is the consequence of the things that have been given to them.”
Read the full article here
I'm certainly not denying these things have happened, it's just always curious how all the details of these events are only ever released when there's money to be made by the person with the accusations. Or perhaps Italian regulators have no interest in proving these cases?
Do you think AFL or NRL players use performance enhancing drugs?
ReplyDeletehi Zepp, no I don't because the leagues test fairly heavily on that now. Not saying it hasn't happened before - the Western Reds in the defunct Super League were found to be heavily involved in it but that was back in the 90s. Aus culture is a bit different - the attitude against people who cheat is much stronger, whereas in Italy or Spain, it seems to often be "Meh, whatever, everyone else must be doing it". And in the US, nobody cares if you gloss over it by reciting the gospel or clearing your conscience by doing (or putting on the facade of doing) loads of charity work.
ReplyDeleteNot saying it couldn't happen, but the penalties on teams makes it unlikely to occur. More chance of a rogue in an individual sport doing it I reckon.