An unnamed Premiership football player has been cleared of using a 'specified substance' after a drug test, when he claimed that he had unknowingly ingested the drug in another player's urine.
It seems that drinking a small quantity of urine is a forfeit in a well-known drinking game played regularly by some teams. Because of the way the game is played, the person who drinks the urine never knows exactly who has donated it.
As a result, when this particular player was accused of using a banned substance, he denied knowingly taking anything and claimed it must have been present in the urine of one of his team-mates. He was unable to say who the urine donor was, and tests carried out after the event were inconclusive.
An anti-doping group has reacted by saying that this ruling offers a get-out for any drug-taking athlete. "Before you know it, they'll all be drinking each others urine by the bucketful to cover up the fact that some of them are taking banned substances."
When asked what their advice to sportsmen and women was, they replied "Only drink the urine of someone who you know for certain hasn't taken banned substances. Or drunk anybody else's urine."
