Football
ESPN staff 8y

Arsene Wenger's doping comments to be discussed with FA chairman Dyke

Football Association chairman Greg Dyke wants to talk to Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger about his recent comments on doping.

Wenger said in a recent interview with L'Equipe Sport and Style that he had never instructed one of his players to take a performance-enhancing substance, but suggested he had come up against opposition who may have done so.

The Frenchman isn't satisfied with the level of testing being done to catch dopers in football, and has called for blood testing to be the norm as the sport moves forward.

Dyke told the Daily Mirror: "I know Arsene quite well and I will have a chat with him and say, 'What is it you are saying? What evidence do you have?'"

Asked if the game in England is clean, Dyke said: "You can never say that you are confident. I suspect there are people in athletics, in Russian athletics in particular, who said that they were confident. They aren't confident today, are they?

"So I would never say that I am confident. But I haven't seen the evidence. And you can only base your position on evidence.

"I have always said that football is fairly clean. So if someone is saying that it is not, someone off Arsene's stature, then we ought to find out about it."

Last week, UEFA banned Dinamo Zagreb's Arijan Ademi for four years after the midfielder failed a drug test after a Champions League match in September.

On Thursday, UEFA confirmed Ademi was banned after testing positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol.

Of the suspension, Dyke added: "Zagreb is a different argument. I am interested in English football.

"We haven't seen it. Whether it is there, I don't know. We have people who spend a lot of time looking. I think it's interesting, and that's why I would like to have a chat with Arsene about it."

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