Across Europe, with UEFA’s plan to force clubs to livewithin their financial means, there is a potential shift from west to east thathas never happened before. Zenit St. Petersburghad spent well over a $100 million this season. Zenit’s benefactor is theRussian energy giant Gazprom. The athletes who play for all these clubs arepossibly the richest beasts of burden. However, the workload has been excessivefor decades. There is no longer a preseason, or reasonable leisure time to winddown and rejuvenate worn body parts. Guess what? The players are seeking theirown medicine to sustain this workload.
FIFA’s chief medical officer, Dr. Jiri Dvorak, has postedwarnings on the dangers of using painkillers and anti-inflammatory medications. Dvorak said that a study involving all32 teams at the last two World Cups showed that the reliance on painkillingdrugs from morphine to heat rubs had increased from 29 percent in 2006 to 34.6percent 2010. Alarmingly, Dvorak’s studies reveal that even at the under-17level, as many as a quarter of all players had used pain-killing substances.
Philippe Tscholl, a co-author of the studies with Dvorak,stated that in one under-23 age group championship, one national squad hadprovided 22 of its 23 players with some kind of painkilling agent before games.Lionel Messi’s desire to play every single minute of every match may be admirable,but even FIFA does not know what limit to put on individual players, butmedical officers polled in May suggested that 60 games per year might be areasonable starting point.
But there is another temptation that carries its ownconnotations for the athlete: the prevalence of food supplements. Once again,FIFA found that 35 percent of players at the World Cup level and nearly 50percent at the under-17 and under-20 levels took food supplements. Dvorak isnow convinced that the medical officers have to get back to their primaryobjective “ ensuring that sporting activities are health-enhancing. “Thismeans,” he said, “ensuring that players are treated as humans, not asproducts.”
