Drug Abuse: Storm In a Herbal Tea Cup

A sober and level-headed soccer magazine is pretty much a contradiction in terms. There is something about the subject which seems to attract writers who suffer from permanent brain fever and designers who produce the typographical equivalent of foaming at the mouth.


The one exception, in the English-speaking world at least, has always been World Soccer. Comprehensive, academic even, it will tell you more about obscure Guatemalan defenders than you ever wanted to know.


Imagine my surprise, therefore, when opening the latest issue to find inside "a special nine-page investigation into drugs in football," luridly described as "potentially the most explosive issue to threaten the credibility of the international game."


Well, when magazine editors describe something as explosive, you can be sure the matter in question has all the destructive force of a bag of popcorn. So it is in this case. In nine breathless pages the magazine cannot come up with a single provable example of a player improving his performance with drugs. Instead we have a few second-hand rumors, the French player whose drugs ban last season was hushed up by his own club and the Dinamo Minsk player recently banned for taking steroids. Regrettable, perhaps, but hardly evidence soccer is under deadly chemical attack.


The real revelations of the investigation are in what you might call its unintentional side effects; for, far from stimulating anxiety, World Soccer's drugs special proves a tranquilizer. Most of this reassurance (fascinating in its detail) comes from the magazine's leading boffin Paul Gardner, Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. His conclusion is worth quoting: "There is not much for the football player looking to chemically boost his game. Steroids add bulk, when football calls for speed and agility. There are no imposed weight limits in the sport, so diuretics have no place. Beta-blockers are for sportsmen who don't run around. Stimulants may increase concentration, but they upset judgment."


Even attempts to enhance performance with legitimate substances can backfire. Some years ago Dr. Roberto Avanzi, an Argentine sports medicine expert, worked at Racing Club and fed players a special vitamin cocktail. They won game after game at the start of the season, but suddenly slumped with a long injury list. Avanzi's special brew was blamed and poured away.


Then there is the whole flawed business of testing, making (as it sometimes has) drug cheats out of players who have taken cough medicine. In South America players often drink herb tea before a game. First because they like it, second because the coca leaves in it help combat altitude problems. But coca leaves contain cocaine. Thus several players have tested positive for drinking mere Trimate, a widely marketed health drink that is the Bolivian equivalent of Bovril. Speaking of which, do you know that a simple cup of tea or coffee drunk before a game will mean illegal amounts of caffeine in your body after the match?


But perhaps the greatest satire on the subject -- and, to me, the magazine's scoop -- concerns Diego Maradona's celebrated drugs bust at the World Cup. Professor Arnold Beckett, the man who has pioneered drug testing in soccer, now believes that the Argentine star is the victim of an injustice. It is his contention that of the five drugs for which Maradona tested positive, two were contained in a proprietary diet preparation called Ripped Fuel and the other three were produced by the player's own body in chemical reaction to the first two substances.


So there we have it. The man who was in any case a lumbering parody of his former self was on nothing more potent than a kind of souped-up SlimFast.


After writing this column, David Randall tested positive for nicotine and caffeine. He claims these substances aid composition and concentration. Readers may disagree.