Wenger Calls For Stiffer Doping Measures In Football

Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger has advocated for routine blood tests in soccer to improve anti-doping measures and called on the game’s authorities to follow the example set by other sports.

The Football Association (FA) has asked the Arsenal manager to explain previous comments in which he said he had never injected his players to make them better but suggested he had faced opposition teams who were not in that frame of mind.

In his latest comments, Wenger said footballers should be routinely blood-tested rather than submitted to “superficial” urine tests.

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Speaking at a press conference ahead of the Gunners’ match against West Brom, the 66-year old said: “I am open to talking to the FA, of course.

“The doping problem has suddenly turned up in track and field as well, we have a problem in cycling, and then [to] think that we in football are immune because they are football players is absolutely wrong.

“I want deeper tests, better tests because what we test is superficial. What we want as well is that when people are caught that they are punished – and that the clubs are punished as well.

“We have to tackle this problem and not close our eyes, because it is a little bit not reasonable to think that just because we are football we have no problems with it.”

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The Frenchman was unhappy when Dinamo Zagreb’s Arijan Ademi, failed a drug test after the Croatian side beat Arsenal 2-1 in the Champions League earlier this season and he was furious at the length of time the testing procedures in Europe’s top competition take.

He added: “When you play away in the Champions League, most of the time we lose two hours when there is doping control because people cannot fulfill the tests.

“With a little blood test it takes a minute and you can test much more.

“We sit sometimes on the airplane and wait for half an hour or an hour until the guys who have the tests can come back and fly back. You come back at 4am because the tests last too long.

“It is simple, why can we not do it? In every other sport they do it.”

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Meanwhile, In the Premier League, Arsenal play West Bromwich Albion tomorrow November 21st 2015, at the Hawthorns.

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