Sheffield United goalie Paddy Kenny has been banned for nine months for a drugs offence. His crime? He "knowingly ingested an over-the-counter medicine above the prescribed dosage without reading the accompanying package or leaflet". It appears no one disputes that all he was seeking was relief from a cold, not a competitive advantage of any sort. To some extent the current economic crisis is beginning to force the idocy of the New Labour "box ticking" mentality from our lives, but clearly it's hanging on in the anti-doping world.
This sort of decision does nothing to further the notion we are getting "drug free" sport as we really care about it - i.e. a sport free of performance enhancing drugs and "artificial" sportsmen and women. Are cases like Kenny's merely brought because they can't catch any "real" cheats? Or perhaps there aren't actually any "real" cheats and poor Paddy is suffering just so the anti-doping people can keep in work? Use some common sense, chaps, and don't deny a man his chance to work just because he caught a cold.
Not much else going on yet today. It would seem Don Fabio is starting with Hesky and not Defoe, but that he'll replace Wright-Philips with Lennon. Personally I think it would be rather amusing if the match ends up as a Rooney vs Eduardo dive-off, but I do actually want England to get to the World Cup so I will be rooting for a good 'un from the Three Lions. But that's tomorrow, after a tour of the agencies with Mad Dave and a visit to that awful place.
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