Arsenal have responded to claims in today’s Sunday Times that certain players have treated by a doctor who admitted prescribing performance enhancing drugs to over 150 sports stars.

Dr Mark Bonar was videoed secretly by the newspaper, which covers the story in huge detail (go buy a copy!), and he claims to have ‘treated’ Arsenal players, amongst others with, ‘with banned substances such as erythropoietin (EPO), steroids and human growth hormone, and the sports performance improvements were “phenomenal”‘.

The article states:

Bonar claims he has treated Arsenal, Chelsea, Leicester City and Birmingham City players. Despite Bonar’s claims, The Sunday Times has no independent evidence Bonar treated the players. There is no evidence the clubs were aware of Bonar’s relationship with any players or drug use by them.

Responding to those claims, Arsenal said: “Our players are well aware of what is expected. We strictly adhere to all guidelines set by the World Anti-Doping Agency and our first team players participate in approximately 50 random drugs tests during each football season.

“None of our players has ever failed such a test.”

There are no names given, for obvious reasons, and it’s unclear if he’s talking about current or past players.

Arsene Wenger has spoken numerous times about doping in football, and the last time he was so outspoken, UEFA sent a delegation to carry out tests on the Arsenal players.

Almost every other sport has a problem with PEDs, so it’s inconceivable that football is as clean as we like to think. Indeed, Dinamo Zagreb player, Arijan Ademi, failed a dope test this season, after we’d played them in the Champions League.

We’ll have to watch this story carefully.