Boss - Why I'm in favour of blood tests

Arsène Wenger believes football should introduce blood tests to help uphold the integrity of the game.

The Arsenal manager was recently contacted by the FA after he discussed doping in an interview during the international break.

Wenger has called for “deeper tests, better tests” to ensure that football remains clean.

 

“I am open to talking to the FA of course,” he said. “I just mean that you see the doping problem has suddenly turned up in track and field as well, we have a problem in cycling and then [to] think that we in football are immune because they are football players is absolutely wrong.

 

“I want deeper tests, better tests because what we test is superficial. What we want as well is that when people are caught that they are punished and that the clubs are punished as well.

“We have to tackle this problem and not to close our eyes because it is a little bit not reasonable to think that just because we are football we have no problems with it.

“When you play away in the Champions League, most of the time we lose two hours when there is doping control because people cannot fulfil the tests. With a little blood test it takes a minute and you can test much more.

“We sit sometimes on the airplane and wait for half an hour or an hour until the guys who have the tests can come back and fly back. You come back at 4am because the tests last too long. It is simple, why can we not do it? In every other sport they do it.”