Alejandro “Papu” Gomez spoke again about his doping case, which broke out in October 2023 but what had happened during the Qatar World Cup 2022. While serving the two-year ban without playing, the world champion footballer revealed unprecedented details of this whole ordeal he had to go through.
Regarding some moment that he would like to forget about all this time, he was clear: “Yes, obviously the easiest thing would be to say, why did I take that cough syrup? Or I just forgot to tell the doctor that I took that cough syrup.”
“Many times I jokingly said: ‘If I win the World Cup I won’t play football anymore.’ And I won the World Cup and played a few more months and was suspended. But then one has to be very attentive to the things one wants, because Life can always give them back to you in its own way. So, well, luckily I’m here today and I’m enjoying football again,” he said.
“Papu” was suspended by the authorities for “serious negligence” after consuming terbutalineprohibited substance.
In fact, he found out about the punishment before playing the final against France. “It was horrible. I think it’s one of the worst things that can happen to an athlete.”except for one major injury: a doping case. In my case, imagine, living the best moment of my career, being in a World Cup final, I open my email and see CELAD. I see the email there: Alejandro Gómez, CELAD, antidoping, positive, terbutaline. I mean, what is this? “I didn’t understand anything,” he said.
Unfortunately, the prelude to the final of the World for Gomez It ended up being a nightmare: “I was very bad two days before the final, with a fever, thinking about what could happen. I didn’t know if they were going to suspend me at the time, when I stepped on the field in the final or after the final. I had no idea. “There began the bureaucratic process with the lawyers and CELAD.”
Papu Gomez recognized the support that the coach gave him Lionel Scaloni throughout the process before the doping becomes public.
“Scaloni called me every two or three months, he wrote to me asking how everything was going, if there was any news. He was always very close to me, always worried about everything. Let’s see, he couldn’t help me much, but he was always very supportive and he is one of the people who was always very attentive to everything.”
On the contrary, he took the opportunity to criticize his club at that time, the Seville of Spainwho did not support him and left him alone.
“Manager Monchi knew this, the president, José María del Nido junior, knew this. I know that my lawyers wanted to speak with the club’s lawyers and they closed the doors to me at that moment. “They told me that they were not responsible for anything, that they left me completely alone in this situation.”shot Gomez.
“I kept it to myself for ten months and that whole internal process was horrible because I played soccer for ten months knowing that maybe… Every day I woke up thinking that, well, today they are going to suspend me”commented on what he experienced.
Finally, he criticized the health agency that suspended him for two years. “It makes me laugh because CELAD, for many years, did things very badly. All the doping cases they have covered are visible and it gives me the feeling that they want to hang the medal with me.”
Source: Ambito
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