It emerged late on Thursday 3rd March 2011 that Kolo Toure, the Manchester City central defender and last season’s captain, had failed a drugs test taken following the Manchester derby for having a ‘specified substance’ in his system.
Toure is currently suspended by City, who play in the English Barclays Premier League, pending the outcome of a investigation into the result of the test, which discovered a substance described by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as “more susceptible to a credible, non-doping explanation”.
Toure’s former boss, Arsene Wenger of Arsenal, speaking in a press conference on Friday, explained that he felt the test result was as a result of the player having taken one of his wife’s weight loss pills, in the press conference (see above video), Wenger explained:
“It is a complete surprise, because I had Kolo Toure here for years, I brought him here, and he is a boy who has a clean life, very honest living, always at home, family man and I do not suspect him at all to have taken … drugs to enhance his performances.”
“I just think its a mistake by (the player) forgetting ‘can I take that?’ when he wants to control his weight a little bit, because that’s where he has some problems and he took the product of his wife … never trust your wife on this kind of thing!”
“That’s why he was caught.”
“I think that it was a mistake … He was not cautious enough.”
“I don’t think there is a desire there to do something wrong and to hide it.”
The outcome of the enquiry into Kolo Toure’s test result is still outstanding, though the player is currently suspended from Manchester City selection by his club.
