The Beautiful Game: The Medicine Men

[Monica]

Hi guys,
Tonight I watched an amazing program on SBS (Monday, 7:30pm) about the sports medics of the European soccer world. I don't want to give too much away, but it looked closely at the usages (or rather, misusages/abuses) of drugs. It was incredible!! (Some of you may recall one of my first posts in "Cricket injury prevalence", where I spoke of collating data on the illnesses suffered by past players. On this program, such measured were initiated, to what have so far been disturbing results) It showed the differing medical attitudes from rival clubs Juventus and A.C. Milan (whose Milan Lab is just phenomenal!!). Did anyone else happen to see it? It is apparently a 4-part series, so I encourage you to see it if you can!!

A.C. Milan's site for Milan Lab is:
www.acmilan.com/MostraInfo.asp?id_info=18932

Mon

[injuryupdate]

I watched the show and overall it was very eye-opening. I will try to watch the other episodes.

Milan Lab reminds me very much of the AIS in Canberra. It is probably a revolution for a single football team to have a set-up like this, but we definitlely have something as good in Australia.

Some of the program was sensationalism over not much - e.g. football players take lots of anti-inflammatories, and play with painkillers. This isn't as controversial as the show made out. However, use of EPO (which they alleged and provided some proof with the blood test results) is very controversial. Also, experimental use of IM anti-depressants is another dodgy area.

[injuryupdate]

Monica,

Did you watch part 2 of the SBS series on Monday night? I have to admit I forgot about it and watched the Back Page on Fox instead, as I wanted to see what Birmingham, Fitzsimmons, Taylor and Gibson had to say about the Danny Williams punch and the cycling drugs fiasco.

On the Tuesday I watched the ABC series Blood, Sweat and Cheers about the 10 years leading up to 2004, on Kyle Van Der Kuyp and his mother Pat. This was a good show. I missed the week before on the gymnasts and heard this was very good.

I have put up a front page article on the original SBS program, particularly referring to the EPO allegations and the ALS issue.

[Monica]

injury,

Sorry for the delay. I did watch Part 2 last Monday, and sadly, none of the program pertained to medicine. It was still very interesting though, dealing with the money side of European soccer - the billions of dollars involved in prize money, the funding of the UEFA Championship Cup, the corporate sponsorship, player wages, etc.

I hope I have not discouraged you from tuning in tomorrow night... I know I'll still be watching!!

Mon

[injuryupdate]

A recently aired program on SBS covered the drug problems in Italian soccer, particularly looking at the teams Juventus and AC Milan. Amongst the allegations were that Juventus players had haemoglobin and haematocrit levels that were so high that they almost proved that EPO-use was rife amongst the players, that players were injected experimentally with anti-depressant drugs to try to increase performance, and that there was a large number of cases of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in retired soccer players, perhaps related to drug use. ALS is also known as motor neurone disease, and has had a number of high profile sufferers, including US baseball legend Lou Gehrig, Balmain rugby league player Scotty Gale, NZ rugby union player Jarrod Cunningham (read more) and British physicist Stephen Hawking. It is worthy of further study to see whether risk factors can be found which makes this disease more common in elite athletes or football players, and whether drug use or sporting injury is connected. Read more about this disease at the Health Report.

[sis]

Hi Monica,

I've just read your posting. I have been told about this program by a few of my colleagues.

If you or anyone out there has a copy, I would really like to see it. Please let me know if you have one and I'll send you my pstal address.
I'm happy to pay you for postage and the cost of the tape, unless you want it sent back, which I'm happy to do.

Cheers,

Simon.

[injuryupdate]

Another feature in Big League (NRL) on Garry Longhurst, who is a retired Dragons player suffering from motor neurone disease (or ALS etc.) Recently Scot Gale (ex-NRL) also died from this disease. Maybe it is not just soccer in Europe but in fact all professional athletes who are seemingly more susceptible to this condition.

Would make an excellent research project.