Conspiracy theory: Juventus spiked Pogba so he would test positive so that he would be banned and they can terminate his contract to get him off the payroll
Just wanted to stop by and say Thank You for your channel, the quality of the videos, the depth of the information and for being fairly neutral and objectif. I have been subscribed for about a year and I have nothing but respect for your work.
@@leo-mf22And unlike most other big football channels (looking at you Football Daily, HITC Sevens and Maqwell) he hasn't turned political either. It's refreshing.
it's a shame man pogba was armed with the talent, flair and natural athletism to be one of the greats in this game but just lacked the mentality and discipline to do so
This topic is so hard as there are probably many substances that are both performance enchancing and used to help recovery or other reasons. Some footballers propably knowingly take banned substances, sometimes its mistakes, sometimes it can even be abnormalities in the human body. We know in the womens game, that some women actually fall above the testosterone level allowed by the anti-doping agency and have to literally take hormone blockers due to that. Doping, fairness and the human body are wild.
i remember back when Liverpool won the league (or maybe even the year prior when they lost to City by 1 point) there were jokes flying around about how the whole Liverpool squad were asthmatic and were getting "treatment" for it. Thought we'd one day find out more but nope, haven't heard anything more about it in years.
The testosterone they test for is not the same as natural testosterone my guy. Its detectable because it's synthesized from wild yams, a vegetable. You would not get banned for having "too high T", even though it would raise eyebrows
It felt really nice seeing one of my favorite youtubers in an Austrian kit. Never expected that. Nations like my country Austria don't get much represantation because it's just a small country and not a really big footballing nation either. Thank you for that! Keep up the good work.
In 2006, a huge opportunity was missed, when they busted Eufemiano Fuentes, the doctor who basically provided every cycling team in the world with performance enhancing drugs. After his arrest, cycling became a laughing stock among sports fans, but it went frustratingly unnoticed, that Fuentes had a hell lot of contacts with world class football teams (including FC Barcelona). Somehow no one looked any further into this, but with the ever increasing intensity of the game, it would be naive to think that there's no doping happening behind the scenes.
Yup as usual cycling was the sacrificial lamb, there was a lot of sports also implicated in terms of Tennis, football, athletics etc etc that could have brought a whole nation down but it was only cycling that suffered The funniest thing is, out of all sports in the world cycling probably has the most stringent drug testing going
You mean Spain covered up, as always. England hasn't launched an investigation into the abusive use of anti-asthma "medication" at certain football clubs either. For all its flaws Italy remains the only nation to have tried to stamp down on doping.
Messi's contract literally had a stipulation in it that Barca would give him HGH. I wouldn't say it was unknown or low key. Doping happens in football, and there's lots of wild ways players do recovery with blood transfusions (aka the main problem with cycling.) The big problem is that the vast majority of doping in football happens when a players trying to recover from injury and by the time they can be tested for anything the substances are already well out of their system. Pogba getting busted for it isn't surprising considering his injury record.
Speaking of interesting excuses or explanations, the 2022 Olympic figure skater from not-officially-RUS who was 15 years old and was caught doping said she had ingested the bad stuff when she drank from her grandpa’s glass that happened to have heart medication in it. Kamila Valieva. The IOC still hasn’t figured out if they should give medals to the rightful winners of the team competition or not.
@@swordsman1137 The glass story is probably not true. When the most tested female skater Alexandra Trusova (who did technical content up to the men's top standards which is unheard of in this sport) survived the doping control, then Valieva failing it looks... bad.
These "oh, I drank the wrong thing, I ate Chinese hormone meat etc." explanations they come up with have *never* been true. It's impossible to ingest so much of that stuff in one single time that it can be found in a test. This would be way too little. It's sad how often the IOC or CAS fall for that bullshit.
@@swordsman1137 I highly doubt the grandpa’s heart meds accidentally got into the skater. It’s more like all of the skaters have been receiving “supplements” that their trainers tell them they have to take, and the athletes don’t know what it is. Exactly how they did it in the eastern bloc countries in the Cold War. The Russian female figure skaters had been so dominant, because they keep them so underweight and prepubescent for as long as possible, which keeps them lighter and it’s easier to do quad jumps, which are virtually impossible for full grown women. This is terrible for the long-term health of these girls, obviously. If the skater in question had been 16, she would’ve been treated as an adult, so immediately suspended from competition and sent home but her being 15 somehow gave the IOC an excuse to not act. For days afterwards, nobody knew whether she’d be allowed to compete in the women’s competition or not. She had competed in the team competition. Russia had won the gold medal, but they couldn’t award that because of the positive doping test. I just checked before I wrote my comments that the medals have still not been awarded 18 months later. So, technically, everybody should move up a spot meaning the fourth-place finisher Canada should receive a bronze medal, Japan should receive silver, and USA should receive gold. There is a lot of bizarreness about the Russian female figure skating situation, and I’m not blaming the girls! Rhythmic gymnastics is also bizarre. It’s a sport that has been entirely controlled by Russia since 2000. The head of Russian rhythmic gymnastics, Irina Viner, is married to the CEO of Gazprom. In 2021 summer Olympics, The Russians failed for the first time to not win the gold in individual or team competition, which prompted them to say the competition was rigged. Viner said that she knows for sure that a competition is clean when a Russian wins it. The RUS president rewarded all Olympic gold medal winners with prizes, including a car and cash, I think. The girl who placed second, Dina Averina, was given the gold medal level prize, and her twin sister Arina, who had placed fourth, was given the bronze medal level prize. Both girls wanted to retire, which is normal for rhythmic gymnasts at age 20, but Viner won’t let them although they’re both dealing with pretty heavy injuries. Yeah, so what I mean is there is a lot of corruption, and the athletes are, in my opinion, not to blame at all. I doubt their trainers and doctors ever tell them what those “supplements“ and sometimes even prescription meds actually are. If they complained, something could happen to them or their family. As for Paul Pogba … ? Tennis star Simona Halep got banned for four years recently for testing positive. I suspect there’s a lot more doping going on than anybody really wants to know about.
As a United fan you won’t want to hear this but it’s the Man United effect. A guy moves to United for a bunch of money he was never worth and could never live up to whilst being paid a disgustingly high salary. He flops. Then the career just gets worse. I mean how many example of this do we have? Pogba, Sancho, Sanchez, maguire, soon to be Mason Mount
For me it's simple: FIFA want more money and you need more games to make more money, this is FIFA's priority, so the fact that they don't do much against the ped use shouldn't be surprising
My grandma was a professional swimmer and ones medals even in national competitions. She got dopped by her trainer since she was a teenager. She doesn't even know about it because the trainer and the doc said it would be vitamins. It was only when she took her state examination in medicine with a specialization in radiology that she found out about doping agents and noticed that all the symptoms she had had since puberty were common side effects of doping drugs. Afterwards she ended her career and put all her medals deep into a drawer. At 29, her muscles became ill and she had to use a wheelchair ever since. The topic needs to be addressed and we need to take it seriously. Thanks for your video about it.
As a doctor, people can recover from injuries significantly more quickly due to advances in medicine, surgical techniques, and improved knowledge on how the healing process works. Does not have to be doping related, but still could be. Good video
@@FootballIconic still waiting on a video on the Ajax team van Gaal led to UCL glory in 1995; I have the title - "How good were Ajax in 94/95, really" 😃😃😃
It's very typical for athletes with artifically high testosteron levels to be very injury prone. Since the tendon can not grow as fast as the muscle tissue, the discrepancy between tendon loading capacity and applicable muscle force grows with each cycle the athletes are on.
Lock into the Ivan Klasnic Werder Bremen story. Klasnic was massaged with Diclofenac (a painkiller) 3 times a day till his kidney failed. All legal, but he almost died because of the quantity of the painkillers the Bremen doctors gave him.
Great coverage as always 👊🏿. Regardless what happens to him in the end I'm sure a lot of us will still remember that young dominant midfielder we saw at Juve alongside Pirlo Vidal Marchisio culminating in that 2018 World Cup before things started going downhill.
I've never been a big fan of Pogba. That said I feel bad for him. If he gets banned for 4 years then honestly I think that's way too harsh of a punishment. There's no way he's the only one who's doing it. Also, he probably did it to help himself recover. I doubt he would do it for pleasure or mal intents.
@@artair70It is harsh if bans of that sort rarely ever even happen, and it's extremely unfortunate. Pogba is definitely one of the very unlucky few to get caught, and it's also _very_ likely that he didn't even know what he was being given. A lot of pro athletes have their medical people give them bespoke concoctions for one reason or another without them having any clue what is actually in them because how would they know?
because they are adults and you can google whats in any pill. taking pills without knowing whats in it is just naive and stupid...and i dont believe it.@@shepardice3775
@shepardice3775 Most athletes know exactly what they take and whats baned and what isnt. Dont belive the lies of thouse that say they didnt know about someting they took. These guys very ofthen work clolse whit diferent doctors exactly to get the thingsthey need and very ofthen to find a way to not get baned.
He was always a player in the wrong decade of football,he's waaaay too much of a free spirit to fit in with the pep era of uber disciplined positional play. His talents were best suited to the gung ho era of the 00s ,the last era where it felt like players were obliged to entertain, who would "forget about the tactics ,the opposition,even what they were playing for, and just play" - Eamon Dunphy.
By "the wrong decade of football", you mean that he spent his whole career playing like a player in his teens, right? 😛 At no point in football history was it a good idea to hold off one player while shielding the ball, seeing a second player come at you and STILL NOT PASSING THE DAMN BALL, only to lose it to the third player who came up from behind you, because you're in the goddamn center circle of the field, and every player in the world apart from Pogba realises you can't do that shit... I saw him make that exact same mistake so many times, and it is so infuriating from a player who had all the physical and technical attributes to be the best midfielder in the world.
@@korganrocks3995 Absolutely spot on. "Pep era" my ass, that's such a lame excuse. He'd fail in any era with the immaturity and indiscipline he has. Football history is riddled with all sorts of talented players who never lived up to their potential or had short success due to poor mentality, poor choices and poor attitude, and him being one of them is nothing unique nor excusable.
@@sususegarExactly. It's no coincidence that the highlight of his career is the World Cup where he managed to stay disciplined and keep it simple in a way that he never did for United. He could do it over the course of 7 games, but never for a whole season. He should have been forced to watch hours of Paul Scholes passing compilations to see how quickly a proper midfielder moves the ball around.
I would disagree with that he's position has changed and football as a whole, in the klopp era. All 10 out field need to run and pogba just doesn't like doing the dirty work especially when he loses the ball very similar to ozil in attitude.
He should never have left Juve. He had a great manager and great players around him. Moves to United and expected to be the guy to take them to greater things with a revolving door of managers and average players its no wonder he didnt perform well.
United had problems, but let's not pretend Pogba is the victim here; he accepted the money and the challenge, and spent most of his time at United underperforming, to the point where he was often playing worse than players with half his talent.
@@justtestingonceFunny how Ander Herrera was consistently United's hardest working and best performing midfielder yet was sometimes benched for a donkey like Fellaini and then replaced by a donkey like Fred. He was my favorite United player while he was there, and I genuinely still don't understand how the club screwed up so badly with him...
@@korganrocks3995 wages, they didn’t want to pay him but wasted that money on Fred. Solskjaer wanted him but the board didn’t want to sort out his contract.
Nobody wants to get serious about doping because we all want to see more intense games. And whoever is the first to come clean will suffer the biggest consequences. By the time others are found out, people will have moved on to other news.
I’m not a fan of Pogbas but given how shady Juventus are I really wouldn’t be surprised if they slipped him it just so they could stop paying him either
Great video as usual, broski. Really like the subject matter. I'd like it if you could look into the proposed increase of games per season with the addition and lengthening of competitions and whether or not it correlates with an increase in injuries? Im somewhat sympathetic to drug use in the modern game. Asking professionals to play more games than ever at the highest end while insisting that they don't evolve or diversify the ways in which they meet that demand is unfair. With the increase in analysis and pseudo-commentators paired with a reactionary news cycle, the level of scrutiny on any given individual performance, is as high as I've ever seen it. We've just tried to sandwich a World Cup in the middle of the season, while keeping domestic leagues, cup and continental competitions, international friendlies as well the illustrious Nations League, that not a single human being ever asked for. Of course there'll be substances to ensure players can keep up with demand. Look at how rampant cocaine is in high pressure industries such as banking or elite restaurants. Footballers are still humans. If you tell me that this is because of how big football is now, then make it smaller again. Compensation and pay isn't everything. Increasing workload with no consideration for sustainability, player health and performance is a quasi-gladitorial perspective.
Derek from the channel moreplatesmoredates has really good videos on the topic. He covered some footballers but he's more into other athletes. Theres also a nice video from Clarence0 on why he's against anti-doping. The gist of it is that it's a topic that should be spokej more of. Especially since most pros are on the sauce. Anti-doping forces these guys to resort to shady methods, even looking for compounds that have no long term studies done on them. I don't know if football is as extreme, but a conversation definitely needs to be had
As opposed to all players being forced to roid themselves up in order to be able to keep up with the ones who do? Even without using any banned substances all too many players are using all sorts of non-banned stuff, while training hard and playing way too many games, some having to have injections before each game to handle whatever injury their team can't afford to let them operate until after the season. Professional athletes are already pushing themselves to the limit, if we remove the limits we'll end up with players dying for our entertainment.
When the richest league in the world can't get competant referees, I don't hold much stock in dope testing being very thorough and producing accurate results.
“This man can’t catch a break.” Not how I’d describe someone who seems to have been caught cheating. Kid spotted cheating with his homework? “This boy can’t catch a break.” Bankrobber captured by the cops? “This man can’t catch a break.” Your other half caught sleeping with someone else? “Boy, they just can’t catch a break.” You want to catch a break? Don’t cheat.
Question one always has to ask is "Who benefits the most?" And given that drugs can't help you that much in team sports and that drugs will hardly make Pogba less prone to injuries, all on top of his big salary and Juventus' financial state, Juventus stands to gain the most as they can simply terminate his contract (oh, and they tried to sell him hard this summer, too). So I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they have something to do with it as they have been caught not playing fair multiple times.
Tbh there’s probably at least 1-2/4 professionals who take steroids regularly idk why this is such an overlooked problem here you can’t convince me that there isn’t something fishy going on. But it’s probably bc of some corrupt FIFA problem that we won’t know about for at least half a decade
A bit late but there was a time when "Messi" have to do the doping test almost every 2 games , so pretty much when he scored a Hat Trick or two bangers lol. And in all of them his results were "negative" , and to top it off , it was kind on pupose to always have Messi been tested , since its usually two players from each them that gets tested randomly, but Messi was always "hand picked". Messi and CR7 were the main two players that have to always test because "never before" have they seeing two players pushing beyond its limits and having this insane consistency. If anything , Messi and CR7 should be an example on been CLEAN
I wouldn't be surprised if there's more players taking peds, between the league, the cup competitions, champions league, and international duty that's a load of games they have to be fit for.
Souness isn't anti-pogba. He knows he should be a world class midfielder and I think his 'hate' he because he cannot perform consistently for Utd, and he finds it frustrating for him knowing he should/could be one of the best midfielders ever. Yet seemed to managed to do it for Juve before the move and France when even playing for Utd. How my opinion on Pogba is. He should be an absolute world beater but he has an attitude problem that hasn't gone away.
With how things have been since covid, pushed the season to go on for longer, then the WC in december, new rules for how added time is done in the PL. Maybe PL teams will struggle more in the CL. Already a more physical league. On top of that, in 2024 UEFA is banning Tramodol from use in its competitions. As I understand it, Tramodol has been widely used for recovery during a hectic season with three games every week. This (and the world situation at large) makes me think about Cantona’s speech at the UEFA Ceremony where he quoted Shakespear "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport"
Players need five days recovery after a full game iirc, and we're expecting them to play every three days. I'd rather watch my team giving 100% once a week than seeing the lacklustre, energy-saving crap football has been serving up for over a decade at this point...
A 0.24% positive test rate is 1 in 400. 32,000 pro footballers. So there's 80 cheaters globally...? There's probably more than 80 in the Championship alone
Interesting video. With the growing emphasis on individual players rather than clubs, this problem is only to get worse. FIFA/EUFA/leagues will do anything to ensure their cash cows get away with it and players will become more brazen, like in Ronaldo’s case.
There is a LOT, and i mean A LOT of substances, and it starts at the youth level And i seriously mean YOUTH You don't want to know, just enjoy football as a fan, never try to look into it, you will not like what's in it
The guy had everything a lot of midfielders wished for. He could dribble, pass, shoot and incredible vision. All that you need to be a top midfielder but the fact he didn’t have any discipline was his downfall.
Why can we "say for certain" he didn't mean it. Hes been injured a lot of lately, he needed something to give him something to get him going again and instead of going to the club he went to a friend and got something dodgy, the American doctor gave him somerhing that was possibly not on the USADA list. Maybe it is completely accidental either way he is the only one to blame.
Footballers would not really be on steroids though, right?. So this is strange. Even if PEDs are a problem in football. HGH and stuff like Epo or strong pain killers are probably more common.
There is a guy from the olympique masseile squad who said that before their champions league win the manager of the club forced every player to take a injection in the dressing room.
I love your channel Mr., keep up the good work. Even the guys who play football near by backyard take Energy Drinks, thinking it will give them a boost. I can't blame the Pros with this mentality.
Most players play through those injury's and some don't even know they have them! Players are injured when they want to be. Nearly every player who gets checked could find an injury!
considering how doping is a problem in basically every professional, athletic sport on the planet, i think it is fair to assume, that football is no exception. And the stories/exuses are always so dumb ("It was the toothpaste", "i didnt know", "took something unknown", "ate my dogs medecin by accidant")- by everybody involved, even the doctors. Plus the extent and the testing procedures itself kinda creates the impression that Fifa doesnt really WANT to find anything , not to mention, that this organisation is basically the poster child for systemic corruption...i mean. I still like to watch, but ofc pro football is not clean.
I'm pretty sure EPO is the most used, the go to drug for skiers and bicyclers. Its extremly hard to spot especially in such a testing system with major gaps. It only takes 3-4 days for it to be undetectable
Sad to day, but I think doping is a widespread part of professional footballing. Just look at the stakes involved. The amount of money people make. It's just too tempting to boost your performance that little bit
Great video. 4 years is insane for a doping charge. Feel like they need a scapegoat every now and then. I never think about it, but I'm gonna look up to see what exactly is on the banned list. There might be things I take casually over the counter like preworkout or other supplements.
Footballers have lots of money to buy lawyers who will find an excuse for them. As for Pogba's case: no matter what his excuse is, his contract at Juve clearly says he has to disclose every substance he takes with the medical team. He didn't do it that's an indication. Now Juve can deal with the breach of contract how they want. If they don't take this seriously they hurt their reputation and noone will take their contracts serious in the future. But Juve isn't really a shining example following the rules and doing the morally right thing. Pogba still worth a large sum so we'll see what happens.
without chemicals, sports in general would still be in the 1950s. the powers that be will tolerate the situation (with a random high profile victim every now and then) as long as it's profitable and kind of socially accepted (if you know anything about a very physically demanding sport like football). people will always want bigger, stronger, faster athletes and the pressure is huge. the same people that want to see record broken. or do you think that Mr. Champions League will be on the no. 1 goal scoring spot for the next 50 years!?
I really find it baffling how players try to use the "the doctor gave it to me so it's not my fault". When really, there should be a policy in which players are not allowed to visit specific doctors (unless they are the team doctor) and have the doctor be run through a series of background checks and to test the supplement they plan to administer to the player before it is to be given to them.
If they really want to crack down on doping they have to change their methods by a lot. At the very least weekly tests for every player and then some samples troughout the week. They would have to open those facilities directly where the teams do their training. Yes it would cost a ton of money, it would also create more work places. I personally would make this mandatory for ever 1st division team around europe. There you have it, a job well done :)
Part of me wishes football, rugby and Olympic sports went back to being semi-amateur, so the wages, microdosing of substances and sport science stuff go back down. Usain Bolt, Jonah Lomu & Lionel Messi have arguably hit the peak of their respective sports, I can’t see anyone else beating them without severe doping. Sports is fun and entertainment, it shouldn't be pushing these athletes to the point of risking their health and safety
Honestly forget his off-field stuff. On the field he was a skilled player who lacked discipline. Even when he won with France his defensive weaknesses were covered by Kanté, and he was not the engine behind the team’s attack, just a skilled player who could occasionally pop up with a special moment.
Always remember, Fuentes had 200 clients and only 60 of them are known. Nobody is allowed to talk about any possible other clients. Furthermore we know that Messi doped the shit out of himself legally when he was a kid.
Saying "he was sposed to be the next big thing &he wasn't" like the guy didnt win a whole world cup with one of the most sickening lead performances ever is something else.. he should've never come to england/Utd Both the club &the media dismantled that mans confidence & spirit little by little till there was nothing left. Hopefully its a false positive like Deco, but it wont matter now the haters have what they want
Yeah, I don't know how you guys think Madrid players, especially the older ones like Modric, Benzema, and Dani Carvajal had/have such engines and rarely ever got injured or even rested. Bayern Munich as well, I mean just look at Muller on bigger nights. Gortezka, Lewandowski, and Gnabry were also players who moved differently in certain matches. Observe Lewy now for Barcelona, often tired or sluggish having come off a 41-goal season at Bayern... or Gnabry who has had little impact at Bayern now that he's not needed due to Sane's arrival. (EVEN Choupo Moting) In my opinion, teams like these rely on physicality, stamina, "passion" and pressure are the biggest culprits of doping. It's how they win and will continue to do so.
