Ignorance, they say, is a superior kind of knowledge. Yesterday's news that Liverpool were not considering'Mamadou Sakho for selection having seen their defender fail a drugs test in the aftermath of Liverpool's Europa League draw with Manchester United on March 17 has again thrown light on football's attitude to doping. The Sakho story, coming off the back of the Sunday Times revelations three weeks ago in which Dr. Mark Bonar claimed he had treated Premier League footballers with Performance Enhancing Drugs, has left many football fans shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
As sports like athletics and cycling are ruined by dopers, many football fans have largely ignored the possibility that their sport might be touched by the caprice of Performance Enhancing Drugs. The theory goes that there is no drug that can make you good at football, that can improve your touch. This is an absurdly ignorant attitude, as there are plenty of drugs that can make you better at football. Mauricio Pochettino's Tottenham are challenging the title largely by being fitter and faster and stronger than their opponents. This is not for one moment to claim that Spurs are doping, the comparison is made here as illustrative of exactly how superior aerobic fitness can take you.
The exceptionalism of some football fans, who believe that their sport is somehow sacrosanct, is destructive, an outlook preached by those who believe that revelations about doping scandals are harmful for a sport when, in reality, these revelations are very good news.
This ludicrous ignorance has been summarised by Mark Lawrenson in his Daily Mirror column this morning. Lawrenson writes about the Sakho controversy in a way that highlights the worst of the neanderthal and naive attitude to doping in football. Firstly, Lawrenson asks why Sakho would take a risk in taking an illegal substance that might tarnish a fine career, instead of interrogating the idea that a substance might just aid a career:
And the first question that sprang to my mind was: Why on earth would you run the risk?
It’s a massive blow for Liverpool because he has become such an important player, a cult figure among the fans and a few days before a huge Europa League semi-final is the worst possible timing. Sadly, we are living in a world now where everybody is guilty until proven innocent – when, clearly, it should be the other way round.
So, at this stage, you cannot make a final judgement until the result of the “B” sample is known. But what we do know is that Sakho is being investigated by UEFA for failing a test.
The suggestion that it’s a fat-burner seems so strange because in football you play so hard, train so hard, that would be a fat-burner in itself.
Next, Lawrenson decries that we are all waiting for a drugs scandal to hit football out of some kind of perverse or destructive fascination, and acts as if The Sunday Times investigation was a problem the sport could have done without:
It has been prevalent in athletics, horse racing and cycling, but never the richest sport of all.
That, in itself, should perhaps be surprising. Surely the rewards are so big that players would take more risks.
However, it does seem as if we are almost waiting for football to become embroiled in a drugs scandal.
After all, a few weeks ago – no matter how questionable or otherwise – the Sunday Times story put it on the agenda by suggesting footballers were doping.
Lawrenson then states explicitly his ignorant view:
The other part about this is they call them performance-enhancing drugs. To the best of my knowledge, no drug on the market can make you trap the ball better or shoot more accurately.
Of course, there are drugs out there to give you more energy or to run further. But that’s not quite so important as in athletics, for example.
To claim that it is not important to run fast in football is at best stupid, and at worst wilfully ignorant. Lawrenson then admits at the end of his column that " maybe there is a problem. We certainly can’t pretend this hasn’t happened and it could put the sport on red alert". There is a problem. And it won't be solved until Lawrenson and others wake up to it.
