The doping case of the Hamburg second division professional Mario Vuskovic surprised many. Doping also has an inglorious history in football. An incomplete chronology.
Public excitement has long ceased to be particularly great. There have already been too many cases of doping in professional sport. Whether in athletics, cycling or football. Mario Vuskovic from the second division Hamburger SV is only the latest case that became public.
Exogenous erythropoietin (Epo) was detected in a doping sample taken by the 21-year-old on September 16, 2022. Epo promotes the formation of red blood cells (erythrocytes) and increases the oxygen capacity of the blood. Meanwhile, Vuskovic has been temporarily suspended by the German Football Association (DFB). The person concerned has applied for the opening of the B sample.
Criticism from anti-doping investigators
The long-held myth that doping in football “bring nothing” would seem to have been refuted once again. The famous former doctor of the German national soccer team and ex-club doctor of FC Bayern Munich, Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt, had stuck to this story in 2018. Not only for the Surprise of the professional world.
“Anyone who closes their eyes to doping, or at least pretends to, is of course overlooking the current trends in doping in football. Müller-Wohlfahrt simply has no idea about the subject, he should concentrate on his ability to feel his muscles. ‘Mull’ talks Garbage”answered the Nuremberg anti-doping expert Fritz Sörgel back then to the daring thesis from Munich.
Probably not vitamin C
The desire for improved physical performance has probably existed for as long as athletes and teams have been dueling. Even the German team from 1954, which so surprisingly managed to win the world championship and thus “the miracle of Bern”, is suspected of having helped with stimulants.
The historian Erik Eggers of the Humboldt University in Berlin, who has been working on a study of doping in Germany since the 1950s, put it this way in 2010: “The evidence suggests there was no vitamin C in their syringes. It could have been Pervitin.”
Sepp Herberger (left) and the German national team celebrate the 1954 World Cup triumph.
Methamphetamine, known as “Panzerschokolade”, has been manufactured since 1938. An active ingredient that the National Socialists gave their soldiers millions of times during World War II so that they would not tire so quickly in combat.
Later, Pervitin was apparently administered to (competitive) athletes, including footballers. Many players fell ill with jaundice, substitute Richard Herrmann died of the long-term effects of untreated hepatitis.
Schumacher talks about doping
In the decades that followed, doping in football in Germany always remained a (taboo) topic. “There is also doping in the football world – of course, hushed up, clandestinely, a taboo”, Toni Schumacher once wrote in “Anpfiff”, which cost him his job at 1. FC Köln. He was also kicked out of the national team. Schumacher himself admitted to having experimented with the stimulant Captagon.
In 2015, an evaluation commission found that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, doping was carried out systematically at the Bundesliga club Stuttgart and in individual cases at the then second division club SC Freiburg with the help of the Freiburg sports doctor Armin Klümper.
Guardiola and Juventus
But the administration of performance-enhancing drugs was by no means a German phenomenon. The professional football of Italy and Spain also distinguished themselves in an inglorious way on this topic. In Italy there were two very prominent examples.
Pep Guardiola joined from FC Barcelona in 2001 Brescia Calcio to Series A. On October 21 and November 4, 2001, he tested positive twice for nandrolone, an anabolic steroid. Guardiola has been banned for four months by FIFA and the Italian Football Federation.
In 2005, long after he left Italy, he was sentenced to seven months in prison and a fine. But he never had to serve his prison term. Guardiola was the first footballer in Italy to be hit so hard under the then new doping law.
A dark shadow also fell on Juventus Turin’s winning streak in the 1990s. The court sentenced Juve team doctor Riccardo Agricola to one year and ten months in prison for sports fraud through epo-doping and the administration of harmful drugs. At least between 1994 and 1998 systematic doping is said to have taken place in Turin.
fuentes and del morale
No less big headlines about doping were written in Spain in the 2000s. One name in particular stands out: Euphemian Fuentes. The gynecologist from Gran Canaria was active in cycling, athletics, boxing, but also in football.
In 2006 he was caught. Before that he should, among other things, for Real Sociedad San Sebastián, Betis Sevilla, FC Valencia, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have “worked”. Fuentes was sentenced to a year in prison and a four-year ban from practicing sports medicine.
And then there was Luis García del Moralwho as the inventor of the doping system around Lance Armstrong applies and from 1999 to 2003 with the cycling team US Postal was busy. Del morale denies any involvement in doping practices. In US sport, however, he is banned for life in connection with doping offenses. After his work at US Postal he worked for a counseling institute for athletes in Valencia. There you advertised with his work as a medical consultant for FC Barcelona and FC Valencia.