New EPL Drug Test - Rio You Can Escape

Remember when Rio Fedinand “forgot” to go to his drug test? That won’t be happening again. And not just because Rio seems to be a new man these days. As of next season there’s going to be a new Premier League anti-doping system in place. Here’s how it will work:

Thirty Premier League players will be selected and placed on a register. These thirty players will be subject to random tests, meaning it could be any day of the week, any day of the year. But to combat the “Rio Ferdinand factor” and make sure players are available for testing, they’ll have to reveal their location for one hour of every day.

Sounds problematic, but since most footballer’s days consist of going training then going shopping for expensive cars and then going home to play video games, it could actually be a workable system. And Rio-proof too.

The bad news is that illegal gambling and match-fixing is now a bigger threat to football than drugs. Or at least that’s what FIFA were told by betting experts yesterday. It was claimed that of the $350 billion generated by the gambling industry last year (in profits, not payouts, by the way) up to $100 billion could have been earned through match-fixing, and that at least 25 games in Europe have been affected in the last two years. And the experts wasn’t scared to point the finger: “We have to make the public aware though that in Asia there is something going on that attacks the integrity of the sport.”

Sepp Blatter was careful to downplay everything of course.
“It was written and said there was match-fixing without one item of evidence,” Blatter said.“In FIFA we are prepared to fight for clean, proper and fair sport but we cannot stand people abusing football or using it as a platform to spread new scandals when finally there are none.”

Of course Sepp. So looks like the old man won’t be doing too much about it beyond lip service. Can’t upset the sponsors now, can we?