Several reports of doping in the Premier League have emerged last night after a doctor claimed to have had several players as his clients. His name is Mark Bonar and he says that athletes from different sports including football have been his customers.
The clubs in question as per the stories are Arsenal, Chelsea and Leicester City. An undercover investigation was carried out by the Sunday Times and they have published their findings after interviewing the medical practitioner.
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The 38-year-old doctor has supposedly prescribed the drugs to over 150 sportsmen over the last 12 months. They include an England cricketer, British Tour de France cyclists, a British boxing champion, tennis players and martial arts competitors.
The clubs themselves claim to not have an idea about the incidents and there is no concrete evidence in the broadsheet that suggests any names in particular.
The professional suggested that the substance involved were steroids and other types of phenomenal performance enhancers. This is what the report from the Sunday times has mentioned, “In the past six years he has treated more than 150 sports people from the UK and abroad variously with banned substances such as erythropoietin (EPO), steroids and human growth hormone, and the sports performance improvements were phenomena.”
Bonar gave secrecy and fear of being criticized as the reason for not revealing the news sooner. “I don’t really advertise... I don’t want that media scrutiny that kind of (thing), you know, coming down on you,” said the doctor.
The culture secretary of England John Whittingdale was upset with the matter after he had specifically informed the anti-doping agency in Britain to look into the doctor’s doping activities two years ago which the agency failed to follow up on.
The sports minister was alarmed by the incident and felt concerned for the status of sports and its fans in the country. He said, “Sports fans are entitled to be sure that what they are watching is true and fair with all athletes competing on a level playing field.”
“I have asked for there to be an urgent independent investigation into what action was taken when these allegations were first received and what more needs to be done to ensure that British sport remains clean”
“The government is already looking at whether existing legislation in this area goes far enough... If it becomes clear that stronger criminal sanctions are needed then we will not hesitate to act”
