These recent heart problems in football

iainf72

http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Sto ... 83,00.html

You know you're a cycling fan when you raise an eyebrow at these kind of stories.

moray_gub

iainf72 wrote:

http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2158583,00.html

You know you're a cycling fan when you raise an eyebrow at these kind of stories.

You know i was wondering the exact same thing myself and mentioned it to a guy at work, he thought drugs in football ? ...........no chance says he !

cheers
MG

Kléber

The diagnosis seems to be cardio myopathy, not because they've got syrup-like blood or are exhausted by amphetamines.

But when I first heard about the Barca player, I did think the sorry story could have been prompted by blood doping.

timoid.

Only a matter of time before someone on this forum suggested a connection. The recent deaths are down to weak hearts, not thick blood.

Monty Dog

There was a previous thread about drugs in football and there were vehement nay-sayers who denied it would be any use. Sadly, the fact that this was a Spanish footballer in Spain and that a significant number of Dr Fuentes' clients were allegedly football players, then it's not difficult not to draw assumptions. It'll be interested to hear if the post-mortem results identify an inherent heart condition or something else. knowing Fifa's stance on such issues, expect a wall of silence. Laughably, Tony Cascarino in today's Times was saying that today's pros are 'over-worked' and that such occurrences are a direct consequence of this - a couple of kick-abouts and a couple of training sessions is over-worked - adds insults to real professional sportsmen everywhere - probably more to do with lack of fitness and condition IMHO.

ddraver

I think thats a bit of wishfull thinking monty - not a football fan perhaps?!

afx237vi

I think it would have crossed the minds of any cycling fan who saw the news about the Spanish guy. Fuentes did after all admit to working with clubs in La Liga.

The others are just a coincidence. Some guy playing lower league football in England and some Zambian no-one has ever heard of. It's like shark attacks. You have one serious incident and then every other tiny incident is blown up out of all proportion.

Three non-related incidents in the space of a week, spread halfway across the globe, and all of a sudden there are calls for mandatory heart screenings and defibrillators to be installed at every club in the world.

But still - there is a certain irony about the guy's name.

Peakraider

I'd say football is where cycling was about 15 years ago. Doping is rife (cf Chelsea's 'blood spinning' aka blood doping), testing is minimal, and no-one wants to acknowledge it.

The recovery times from injury, the 'oxygen tents', the visits to specialist doctors in the US/Italy/Spain when a player needs to get back for a big match quickly, etc, etc. All looks a bit suspicious.

mozandmarr

I'm not denying there are problems in football but, as Kimmage says, don't forget that Rio was banned for 9 months for just one missed test! No other sport would do that. In fact contrast that with the UCIs suggestion that a ban after 3 missed tests is too harsh. :-(

I've spoken to a top sports scientist (works for a top rally team) who suggested that football might be less prone to systemic doping due to the fact that it is more a general fitness sport rather than specialising in a certain area. That was just an informed opinion rather than based on insider knowledge though.

Injury recovery is another matter though. The most interesting thing about the Chelsea blood spinning thing was the fact that it isn't illegal in football. I'm not sure if this is due to the fact that it was localised rather than a full blood transfusion. I can't say I've followed the technical side of it that closely.

iainf72

mozandmarr wrote:

I'm not denying there are problems in football but, as Kimmage says, don't forget that Rio was banned for 9 months for just one missed test! No other sport would do that. In fact contrast that with the UCIs suggestion that a ban after 3 missed tests is too harsh. :-(

Rio's missed test was after a match.

Not out of competition.

BIG DIFFERENCE.

oily sailor

Rio's missed test was not after a match, it was during the week and was supposed to be in the afternoon. He left the training ground at lunchtime, intentionally or unintentionally avoiding the test.

OffTheBackAdam

It would have qualified as a positive test in cycling and probably athletics and got him a 2 year ban!
As to whether the reported spate of footballers collapsing & dying is drug-related (EPO did cross my mind too!) or coincidence, we'll not know, unless the autopsy reports get published, but cast your minds back to the late 80's, when there were several similar deaths in cycling, in Belgium, IIRC.

timoid.

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

It would have qualified as a positive test in cycling and probably athletics and got him a 2 year ban!
As to whether the reported spate of footballers collapsing & dying is drug-related (EPO did cross my mind too!) or coincidence, we'll not know, unless the autopsy reports get published, but cast your minds back to the late 80's, when there were several similar deaths in cycling, in Belgium, IIRC.

The deaths in football are nothing like those deaths in cycling. Most (all?) of those kids went to sleep and never woke up. That's how EPO gets you; your heart rate drops to zero and you arrest and die.

The footballers had physical stress related heart failures. There is no comparison. Anyone who makes the connection is flawed in his logic at best and downright sinister at worst. Rubbing your hands at premature deaths in football as a sign of drug taking in the sport is really clutching at the most feeble of last straws to try to justify cycling's current malaise.

Our sport is rotten to the core. It stands with athletics sprinting and weightlifting as the most drug dependant sport on the planet. Its in the gutter; it doesn't matter what other censored is in there with it, cycling must crawl out of the gutter itself.

top_bhoy

Totally agree - cycling has got to put its own house in order irrespective of whats happening in other sports. Just look at the toppling of sponsors in the last few months. That said, a systematic doping regime would assist in any sport where a physical or endurance attribute was required. Football, IMO, would fit the bill on both counts!!!

jocksyboy

I seem to remember hearing that Rio missed the test because he had contracted an STD and thought that the test would show that up and he didn't want his missus finding out.......?

Deuce

As I remember it, the Ferdinand case was an out of competition test, but he had been located and asked to present himself for the test. He then left the site. So it was more akin to a "refusal" than a missed test.

afx237vi

The Ferdinand case was quite similar to the Stefan Van Dijk case a couple of years ago. Van Dijk saw the doping wagon trundling up his driveway and did a runner out the back door. He was given 1 year for avoiding a test, Ferdinand was given 9 months for essentially the same thing.

leguape

Ah bless Kimmage, did he forget the pitiful sentences that Stam and Davids got for positive tests for Nandrolone? Ferdinand was told the testers were present and waiting for him. He failed to attend and present a sample. Not the same thing as missing a test because of some fault over notification.

jimmythecuckoo

Timoid. wrote:

Only a matter of time before someone on this forum suggested a connection. The recent deaths are down to weak hearts, not thick blood.

You can forgive peoples cynicism though.

girofan

:oops: If you saw the England performance against Germany recently, you'd know all the dopes are in the England team.

mike_1980

its easy to be suspicious but as some other posters have said its likely due to pre-existing heart problems and its just coincidence that a bunch happened all at the same time.

incidently i spent 3 hours yesterday being injected with drugs and having shedloads of ECGs taken to look for signs of Long QT syndrome, I guess my two family members who recently died should have stayed from the EPO ?