Didier Shock as Juve Are Charged
Didier Deschamps, the Chelsea midfielder and World Cup winning captain of France, has his name embarrassingly linked to a long-running Italian drugs investigation.
Turin magistrate Raffaele Guariniello will publish the result of his judicial inquiry into alleged doping offences by Juventus next week. According to a report in Italian news magazine Panorama, he is accusing them of sporting fraud for having won matches and trophies from 1994-98 through the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Juventus deny all the charges.
Deschamps, who played for Juventus during the whole of the period in question, was asked to give witness statements by Guariniello on three separate occasions. His name appears in evidence on club medical records which show the level of cells in his blood to have been 51.2 per cent of a sample.
Such readings raise the suspicion - but not the proof - that the sportsman concerned has taken EPO, the wonder drug for athletes, most notoriously professional cyclists, that helps them beat fatigue.
Luigi Chiappero, lawyer for Juventus told Panorama that Deschamps had produced a reading of more than 50 per cent. He later told Observer Sport : 'There is nothing inaccurate in the Panorama article.'
Investigators discovered that Angelo Di Livio, now with Fiorentina, was the only other Juventus player with a similar reading. Cyclists and skiers found to have such ratios are not allowed to perform by their governing bodies on the grounds their health could be in danger.
EPO, a naturally occurring hormone, increases the number of red corpuscles in the blood and thus the flow of oxygen. 'It has the same effect as blood doping ,' said John Budgett, Chief Medical Officer of the British Olympic Association. 'The vast majority of athletes show levels of 45-47 per cent. It is very rare to see 49 and 50. We do a lot of blood tests and it is incredibly rare to find one higher than 50. You cannot say for certain it is EPO in such cases. A person could have a naturally high reading and dehydration or a spell at altitude could have made it higher. But it is incredibly suspicious.'
Deschamps - and perhaps it is no coincidence - is in the middle of a stand-off with the French media. Why has Deschamps, the usually communicative captain, fallen silent with his world champions favourites to become the first team to follow up global success by adding the European title? For one thing, he is fed up with his place in the team being questioned after a season of indifferent form with Chelsea. Patrick Vieira, of Arsenal, is being touted as his replacement.
But France Football, the magazine that chooses the European Player of the Year, suggests the abnormal blood reading revealed in Italy may be among the reasons, too.
The inquiry was launched after Zdenek Zeman, then coach of Roma, openly accused Juventus two years ago of using drugs, alleging that their former star Gianluca Vialli, a Chelsea player at the time and now Deschamps's boss at Stamford Bridge, and Alessandro Del Piero had both shown unnatural muscle growth.
Vialli vehemently rejected any wrong-doing and threatened to sue. Investigators say five of the 19 different drugs found on the shelves of the Juventus medical room - Bentelan, Flantadin, Deflan, Flebocortid and Solumedrol - contained banned anti- inflammatory substances. Juventus deny giving them to players.
Juventus also refute the inquiry claims that they used anti-depressants and pain-killers not as treatments but for performance-enhancing reasons and prescribed large doses of creatine without consideration for harmful side-effects.
Guariniello, having no proof that EPO was used - none was found on Juventus premises - does, however, accuse them of not taking the necessary precautionary measures when faced with abnormal medical results.
Juventus will go on trial later this year and both Deschamps and Vialli are likely to be among the witnesses in court.
