Arsene Wenger has said he has never ordered one of his players to take performance-enhancing drugs but believes doping could still be an issue within football.
A spotlight has been shone on sport in the last couple of days after the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) published a report which accused Russia’s athletics federation of running a doping programme and suggested the Russians should be banned from future events.
Many believe the expose of Russia’s widespread doping could be merely the starting point for further revelations — with other sports expected to be studied in more depth.
Wenger’s Arsenal side lost to Dynamo Zagreb in a Uefa Champions League clash in October before Arijan Ademi failed a drugs test for the Croatian side, although his “B” sample is still being investigated.
Wenger, 66, says it is a matter of personal pride not to try to synthetically better his teams, even if he thinks opponents may have.
"I try to be faithful to the values that I find important in life and to transmit them to others," he said in an interview with L'Equipe Sport.
“In 30 years of my coaching career, I never got one of my players injected to be more efficient. I never gave them a product that can improve performance. It is about pride. I’ve played against a lot of teams that were not in this state of mind.”
The Frenchman has long been an advocate of more stringent drugs testing in football and feels any sort of sporting achievements currently being recorded can never be truly trusted.
“Today, we will glorify he who runs 10.1 seconds and not the one who runs in 10.2 seconds. But they all run very fast anyway,” he said.
“This is very dangerous in sport. It is happening in an era where we glorify whoever wins; whatever the method and means.
“Then we realise 10 years after that the guy cheated. During that time the one who was second — he suffered and is not recognised.”
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