Arsene Wenger has occasionally touched on his fears over the issue of doping in football over the years.
In a recent interview with L'Equipe, Wenger claimed there is doping in English football. "In 30 years as a manager, I’ve never had my players injected to make them better. I never gave them any product that would help enhance their performance. I’m proud of that. I’ve played against many teams that weren’t in that frame of mind".
French football journalist Philippe Auclair spoke to Off the Ball last night about Wenger's comments and feels there is an issue in the sport. "It's not an elephant in the room. It's a herd of elephants". He added that "most of the footballers that we see and admire are actually clean, but there are exceptions".
Auclair also talked about the situation for 2018 FIFA World Cup hosts Russia as they grapple with a doping scandal in athletics and with their sports minister Vitaly Mutko in the eye of the storm, while he also gave his take on the movement in the corridors of power at football's world governing body.
Mutko is a member of the FIFA Executive Committee and Auclair thinks that Mutko's comments on the doping scandal are "incredible". He also told Off the Ball that the recent events in athletics "should have an effect on what's happening in football".
The doping issues in Russia has shown the light on potential misdemeanors from Russian athletes in other sports and Auclair feels football is still not dealing with doping properly. "Doping is a problem that football has never looked in the face. It never has tried to address it as cycling has done and how athletics is now doing thanks to the intervention of WADA".
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