While baseball is the sport most associated with performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), soccer isn’t exempted from scandal when it comes to players gaining every edge possible. In the latest installment of the PED saga, Argentine powerhouse River Plate is embroiled in a doping scandal after players tested positive for Hydrochlorothiazide, a diuretic drug banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
The South American soccer federation, CONMEBOL, announced this week that at least three River Plate players tested positive, although an official announcement from the club only cited two players. Argentine newspaper La Nación took it even further on Thursday, however, stating that as many as seven players could have tested positive.
Argentinian defender Lucas Martínez Quarta and Uruguayan midfielder Camilo Mayada are the two players that were named by River Plate. Martínez Quarta allegedly tested positive on May 10th, while Mayada allegedly tested positive in Peru on May 18th, following a 3-2 victory over Melgar in the Copa Libertadores. The third player named by CONMEBOL was 21-year-old starlet Sebastián Driussi, although the federation has yet to disclose when he tested positive.
In an official announcement on the club’s site, they claimed that the players’ positive tests were not a result of wrong doing. “[River Plate] vehemently reinforces the supposition that supplementary products used by the club on a regular basis were contaminated,” said the Buenos Aires club.