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Evening Ticker: U-17 World Cup tainted by clenbuterol, Warner lays blame & more

Mexico U-17 (Reuters)

By FRANCO PANIZO

Looks like it may have been tainted chicken after all.

FIFA revealed on Monday that a majority of the players tested in this past summer's U-17 World Cup in Mexico had clenbuterol in their bodies, and that it was a result of eating contaminated meat in the country. FIFA said tests conducted in Germany after the tournament showed that 19 of the 24 teams had findings of the banned drug in 109 of 208 urine samples. FIFA admitted it was surprised by the results, but it insists the youth players were not cheating.

The news comes four days after FIFA decided not to sanction the five Mexican players who tested positive for clenbuterol before the Gold Cup.

Mexico won the U-17 World Cup in July, defeating Uruguay 2-0 in the final to claim its second title.

Here are more stories from Monday:

WARNER BLAMES ZIONISM

To the detriment of most, the Jack Warner saga continues.

The former FIFA Vice President has blamed Zionism for the circumstances that led to him and former FIFA president candidate Mohamed bin Hammam being forced out of the sport's governing body. Warner intends to speak out on the situation in detail through a letter to be released on Tuesday. Last week, a video of Warner explaining payments to Caribbean officials prior to this year's election was published.

GUATEMALA JOINS USA, JAMAICA IN GROUP A OF WORLD CUP QUALIFYING

Guatemala didn't even have to play this past weekend to get a bit of good news. Guatemala advanced to the third round of World Cup qualifying after Grenada and St Vincent & Grenadines eliminated themselves with a 1-1 tie on Saturday. The result means that Guatemala has an unmatchable 12 points in Group E. It also places the Guatemalans in Group A of the third round, joining the United States and Jamaica (the fourth team to join the trio will be either Antigua and Barbuda or Haiti).

FABREGAS RETURNS TO TRAINING

Cesc Fabregas has recovered from his right thigh injury, and returned to practice for Barcelona on Monday. Fabregas' rejoining the group on the practice field comes after a weekend that saw Gerard Pique sustain a thigh injury that will keep him out for two weeks. Fabregas picked up his injury in a training session earlier this month.

EVERTON SIGNS MCFADDEN

Everton added a forward to its roster, signing injury-plagued free agent James McFadden on Monday. McFadden was released by Birmingham at the end of last season and had received interest from Celtic and Wolverhampton Wanderers, but the Toffees beat them to the punch. McFadden, who just recovered from an injury, previously spent five years with Everton.

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What do you think of the latest news on clenbuterol? Expecting Guatemala to be a tough opponent for the U.S. team in World Cup qualifying? Think Everton made a wise decision in signing McFadden?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Haiti, USA, Jamaica, and Guatemala would be a relatively competitive group. USA should finish 1st with only a few dropped points, but it won’t be a cake walk.

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  2. I hope you are not serious…….and which Jesus are you talking about ; ) o and why obese…..The Mexicans I have seen lately are not particularly fit. Just relax. SBI is pointing out the facts. Tainted food was produced and eaten while the U17 World Cup was in Mexico. So sensitive. Should I get you a tissue?

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  3. To cover their tracks they made sure the other teams ate tainted meat and that they didn’t . That way they could say ” look it really is in the meat”… Then made sure the u17 didn’t eat it.

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  4. i can tell you right now that while the FDA does have standards, they are not that high and honestly they expect the industry to police itself. The inspectors will never find anything because of how the system works.

    and one more thing, you are correct that the small quantities are inconsequential, but only per food item. Nobody knows what happens when your mixing the different compounds from all the foods we eat.

    Now dont even get me STARTED on the anti-bionics in our meat…

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  5. Your information is completely incorrect. Clenbuterol is not like EPO. It is a PED, but that is where the similarities start and end. It’s original use was as a treatment for asthma, but it works like epinephrine (adrenaline). This is nice little energy kick for those who are not asthmatic. It also helps but muscle to fat ratio. These two component would be a clear benefit for soccer players or any other high performance athletes. Swimmers and sprinters have been notorious for abusing the substances. Rest assured a lot of this is not diet related. Country teams in sports, including those from the U.S., have a huge history of systematic doping. Reference China, the former USSR, East Germany and the good old US of A. People didn’t believe baseball for the longest period of time, and many foolish people, particularly those in press, believe the baseball doping scandal began in the 90s. All you have to do is go back to the introduction of the “Bash Brothers” in Oakland in the late 80s to know that wasn’t the case. Thanks Jose Canseco. Systematic, random drug tests in soccer of the biggest clubs would reveal some surprises. Brazil and some of its wunderkinds for example.

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  6. Chemical pesticides? Neo-nicotines.
    Organic pesticide? Nicotine.

    They’re the same stuff, one claims to be organic over the other.

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  7. The Mexican teams to me personally in the last 2 years have looked super charged. It seems they don’t stop running for 90minutes. How come they couldn’t manage this high intensity 4-8 years ago. It seemed the U.S is as good as it gets when it came to physique. But that hasn’t been the case against Mexico lately…… The U.S was always quick and strong, but not CHICKEN strong by all means…. I’m going to call it out and say the Mexican national teams eat double patty chicken steroid sandwiches when they play important tournaments. 🙂 Chicken CHEATERS!lol. I bet they continated the rest of the worlds teams with less chicken power subs just so they couldn’t have anything on them. 🙂

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  8. The take away from this story for me is that we really don’t know what kind of chemical soup is in all the factory processed food we eat. If elite athletes can pick up testable amounts of banned substances from eating food on the training table, I shudder to think about what is in the food my family and I eat.

    And the situation is getting worse not better. Monsanto wants to put food in our grocery stores without having to tell us what is genetically modified. Talk about mystery meat!

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  9. Poor Mexican national team. Knights in shining green armor. They have the class of a Wayne Gretzky, the grace of an Audrey Hepburn, the moral and spiritual courage of a Jesus.

    Shame on you SBI, shame on all of you American soccer blogs for daring to denigrate El Tricolor with your saucy American skepticism and smug (almost certainly obese) ridicule.

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  10. Can anyone think of a more absurd comment in the history of modern sports than Warner blaming his resignation from FIFA on Zionism?

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  11. Wow really impressed by the breadth of knowledge. Thanks bottlcaps! I am also inclined to be skeptical of this tainted meat story even after today’s results, but that may just be my tin foil hat talking. Can they correlate these relates with elevated levels of Clenbuterol in the Mexican man or woman on the street?

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  12. Unlike cyclists, soccer players would not benefit greatly from the use of EPO, CERA or any other of the blood boosting or endurance drugs, with the exception of some high altitude competition.

    Soccer is an anaerobic more that aerobic in that players are exposed to more sprinting at slow/fast speeds, than, let’s say Pro-Cycling at the road racing level where the effort is long distance below the anaerobic thresholds. This type of activity is more enhanced by the introduction of PED’s like EPO. This is not to say that soccer players may benefit from some use of these drugs but the drug would be less useful. PEDs in soccer is most likely taking place but those would be the use of out-of-competition timelines, the use of steroids and corticosteroids and similar types of drugs. Testing in soccer is only done at the competition level or by federations before a competitions No sport has the length and breath of testing that cycling does with it’s prevalent out-of-competition and competition testing and looking for drugs in Urine, blood and even stool and tissue sampling.

    The opportunity to cheat is present and real in soccer.

    FIFA should adopt a comprehensive drug testing policy BUT only after stringent testing now would show that there was massive abuse like we saw in cycling in 1999. This is highly unlikely but testing should be prevalent and random.

    Alberto Contador, the 2010 TdF winner, is breathing easier to-nite as a result of these tests, He tested positive in for Clenbuterol in the same amount show by the U17 teams, and faced the real chance his victory would be overturned.These test are giving credence to his alibi that is was from tainted meat.

    Either way the tests (and their positives) show that FIFA is getting serious and despite the machination of people like Warner, are on the right track.

    This coming from a former Olympic and National team coach for cycling!!

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  13. Anybody see that Youtube video/song about James Mcfadden? Its delightful. The same guys wrote a song for those Owen Hargreaves workout vidoes

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  14. I’ve wondered for awhile why more journalists aren’t investigating use of performance enhancing drugs in soccer. It’s surely there. The modern game is played at such a high pace, and the fixtures are so congested for the top clubs that I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some kind of systematic doping organized by teams a la cycling, with team doctors coordinating periodic blood transfusions and administration of EPO or whatever is the newest blood boosting drug.

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  15. I actually agree with you 100%

    Haiti or Antigua and Barbuda aren’t menacing, but will prove to be tough no doubt. Jamaica and Guatemala are definitely going to be no cakewalk. In the same breath I don’t expect us to drop many points in these games, but it will be better that the competition doesn’t seem so drastically higher as the rounds progress.

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  16. Zionism is to blame for his and Mohamed bin Hammam downfall. Give me a break. He is crazy! Good riddance to Warner and bin Hammam.

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  17. Important to mention that the Mexican U-17 team all tested clean for the banned substance. Another article mentioned that they had switched the team diet to fish and vegetables several week prior to the tournament.

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  18. Guatemala, Jamaica and Haiti are all winnable but have proven to be difficult in the past. The bottom end of this entire region is improving. Easy wins are getting fewer and farther apart.

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