Qatar is no longer an explanation for someone gobbing on the pitch: the Premiership has a rival as a home for retiring players, as Daniel Anderson-Ford reports
“Our football league features some of the world’s greatest players, many of them working with some of Europe’s finest coaches, and we hope to compete with the best at club and national level.”
The high number of drug-test failures in Italy compared to England is mainly the result of the seriousness with which the issue is treated there, believes Gabriele Marcotti
The funny thing about nandrolone is that it has been around for a long time. A team-mate on my university rugby team took it for three years. No, he wasn’t a drugs cheat: as a child, he was frail and underdeveloped, so his doctor put him on a nandrolone course. Whether or not he knew (or cared) at the time that it could reduce his libido, increase his risk of developing tumours and potentially lead to “testicular atrophy” is unclear. Either way, in the 1980s, before serious drug-testing, its use was widespread in a variety of sports, including football. Its benefits – increased concentration, increased aggression, increased lean muscle mass – were seen by some as worth the risk of a couple of shrunken balls.
Football has long had a drugs problem but is far from alone in this and should learn from other sports, believes Harry Pearson
As I write the raging debate is whether Rio Ferdinand had his mobile turned off or just on silent during his infamous afternoon shopping trip. It seems to me that if you replace the word “mobile” with “brain” then you are getting nearer the measure of the thing. In truth, given his absent-minded performances of late the fact the Manchester United defender should forget a pressing appointment with a flask is not so surprising, nor in a sense was the reaction it provoked – though Gary Neville and co’s adolescent posturing response did achieve what had previously seemed impossible, uniting the nation behind the Football Association.
At the end of this season, the Spanish midfielder will no longer bask in the affections of Scunthorpe's support on a weekly basis. Steve Askew pays tribute to an unusual import
When Scunthorpe United’s Alex Calvo-García announced his intention to retire and return to Spain during a local radio interview in August, I stuck my head out of the window to listen for gasps of disbelief echoing through the steel town’s streets.
Had the English press not gone over the top, the Turkish media might have made less of the half-time row and still be criticising their own, reports Anthony Lake from Ankara
We did not get the feared trouble among the fans, but the players decided to make up for it. The arguments and accusations have raged ever since in the media in Turkey as well as in Britain. Initially, the Turkish press was gracious in “defeat” and indulged in a bout of soul-searching about why Turkey can’t beat England, but then, as the stakes got higher, things took a different turn, as the vilification of Alpay in England reached ridiculous and potentially dangerous levels.