FanPost

Doping in Football




Being from the US, I have been bombarded with news stories about professional athletes using some sort of performance enhancing drug. I think it is obvious that when there are large sums of money hanging in the balance, players will use PEDs. Every player of every sport would benefit from taking PEDs, whether it be for injury recovery, strength gain, or stamina gain; thinking any sport is immune to this because it doesn't provide a benefit, comes off as naive. Every sport seems to have a different attitude toward these drugs, for various reasons. For most sports, it seems like public perception of players who are caught is not affected too heavily, while others, like baseball, will keep their best players out of the Hall of Fame due to a failed drug test, or even speculation that someone used.

Football seems to fall in line with many professional sports in that they don't seem to be making a large push to catch these athletes that are using. It seems like those in charge are all scared by how fans and media reacted to baseball players, and end up choosing the safety of testing people infrequently and with warning so the athletes can avoid it. They often don't use the most up to date testing, which allows players to take certain drugs knowing that even if they did get tested, they wouldn't be tested for the drug they are taking.

So my question to you all is, do you believe it is important to keep the game clean? Would you rather see real testing implemented designed to catch those players who are cheating? Would you rather see a game where some players who are cheating have an advantage? or would you rather everyone had the option to take PEDs, knowing they wont fail a test? I really don't think its a right an wrong type of issue. It is reasonable to not want the distraction because even if you test, there will be those who still break the rules and don't get caught, so does testing even fix the issue?

Please make any posts here geared towards creating discussion. Any works that are copied and pasted from other sites will be deleted. This isn't a place to advertise services or your blog, it's an extension of our site. Please treat it as such.