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ECHO Comment: "Fears of Witch-hunt Against Liverpool FC"

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Hope theres a metal detector in the Guardian's mail room:

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/apr/29/liverpool-europa-league-mamadou-sakho

For all his current trials there is a great deal to like about Mamadou Sakho. Before the news broke of the defender’s failed drug test, followed this week by a 30-day Uefa suspension, I had a vague plan to write a kind of fond, fuzzy hagiography – a Sakhiography, if you will – about what a brilliantly engaging footballer he has been to watch this season.
In Brazil they like to talk about players who go out and “wear the shirt”. Sakho doesn’t just wear the Liverpool shirt. He looks like he wants to eat it, floss his teeth with it and sneeze it out of his nose in great dripping red nylon strings.

Sakho! What a sight! From the slightly frenzied pre-match prayer, to his excellent close defending, to the way he propels himself about the pitch via a series of powerful spasms and jerks. The odd howler aside, Sakho isn’t exactly clumsy. It’s more he seems to operate from behind a fug of trapped energy, a majestically loopy jumble of limbs, surging out from the back like a drunken Franco Baresi.

Above all he obviously just loves playing, a rowdy kid from a Parisian banlieue who gives the impression of having found a genuine home in Jürgen Klopp’s soulful, evolving Liverpool. If you needed any more persuading he allegedly slapped a football journalist once in France (he did say sorry).

An engaging player then. None of which changes the fact the best parts of Sakho’s season are now unavoidably tarnished following his failed test and apparent acceptance of guilt. And, more importantly, none of this changes the fact Liverpool really shouldn’t still be playing in the Europa League.

It might seem harsh. Sakho is culpable. The club is not. But both have gained an unfair advantage, however minor. And both should have been stood down from the competition, whatever the shemozzle of timetabling, as should any other club in the same position. The rules say otherwise. The rules are wrong.

Instead we have a bizarre world of fudge and compromise. Sakho tested positive for a banned substance, apparently a weight loss drug, after the Europa League last-16 second leg against Manchester United. He played 90 minutes that night, making 18 drug-assisted clearances and tackles, and playing a key drug-assisted role in a landmark result for his club.

He has played six more games for Liverpool since, including scoring a vital late drug-assisted equaliser against Borussia Dortmund. At the end of which Liverpool – who have acted commendably throughout all this – still have a decent chance of drug-assisted silverware, and beyond that a drug-assisted place in the Champions League next season.

There has been plenty of sympathy for Sakho personally. The suggestion is he took a fat-burning substance. A mistake but hardly sinister. He does not deserve to be vilified. On the other hand, the argument that this is only a fat burner is both factually and morally flaky.

On a sporting front, Sakho was previously dropped at Paris Saint-Germain after gaining weight. Clearly the coaches at the club thought it was an issue. Indeed only someone who had never watched any modern football could conclude that peak athleticism, the ability to run nonstop without any loss of speed or focus isn’t a massive part of the game. Being irreproachably fit is a skill in itself. The words of the former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy spring to mind after Sri Lanka’s portly, feisty captain Arjuna Ranatunga had asked for a runner. “You don’t get a runner for being an overweight, unfit, fat [Poor language removed],” was Healy’s rather unkind response. Buried within which is a grain of pure sporting truth.

More to the point there is no grey area here, no sliding scale of good and bad doping. A list of banned substances exists to take this distinction away. This is about the purity of competition. It’s a matter of principle. Remember that?
Uefa’s rules are at least clear. One player tests positive: player gets punished. Two players test positive: same thing. Any more than two and only then could the club face sanctions. Or in other words, in football it’s fine if 20% of your outfield players are on drugs. No problem. You still get to win. Imagine this in other sports. It’s like Ben Johnson being allowed to keep his gold medal in 1988. Ban him. But we can’t change what happened.

The objection to this comparison is that Sakho is only one member of a team. Why punish all for the minor wrongdoing of one? It is a startling piece of logic that can only spring from a desire to soft-pedal and downplay. As Wada itself has suggested there are times the “more than two” rule just isn’t strict enough. In athletics, the entire British 4x100m relay team lost their 2002 European gold medal because of Dwain Chambers. Harsh on the other runners but fair to the sport.

Plus, just imagine the change of internal cultures should the burden of keeping your players clean fall on the clubs, as it does with every other major form of discipline. Field an ineligible player and the match result is instantly overturned. And yet there is no really significant club penalty for winning a game while one, or indeed two of your players are wired on purple hearts, Jägerbombs and nandrolone? Carry on!

The answer, of course, is that no one wants to linger on any of this. What is the motivation for maxing out the punishment? Nobody really wants to kick this particular barrel of snakes over. And so football continues in a state of eerie prelapsarian calm. Sakho will return, no doubt a little wiser. The Europa League will be written up without an asterisk or a footnote. And meanwhile the show rolls on, background music turned up a little higher.
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Klippity is apparently furious that the RS have to play in the lunch-time kick-off on Sunday at the mighty, all-conquering Swansea... so soon after an arduous and harrowing, jet-lag affected flight back from... Spain.

We had to go to OT for a Sunday lunch-time kick-off after flying home from Krasnodar... imagine his whinging fume had he been hit with that scenario.
 

Poor old RS - No Thursday night in Lisbon, Sunday away to Bolton and Tuesday League Cup at Spurs for them.. (plus Saturday 3pm making it 4 games in under 9 days).
 
Darrenc34 said:
Makes you wonder if it's only Sakho involved or has anybody else in the premier league taken anything? We know kilo you're has and he was banned too when playing for Manchester city.
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Hard to know.im sure there has to be.don't think it's rampant but be pretty naive to think there is none at all.
It can be tough i would say as well in some regards like being at home sick and you go to the cupboard take some cough syrup only to find out that is in the banned list.they have to be well educated in these matters and in sure they are but innocent mistakes will sometimes happen but a fat burning drug i would have no sympathy.you are a professional sports athlete.you are getting absolutely stupid money to be in tip top shape and fit as a fiddle so if you are taking these kind of drugs then thats just taking the mickey.
 

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