Mexicans launch doping probe, plead 'accident'

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Five Mexican footballers who were suspended from the Gold Cup for doping after testing positive for the banned substance clenbuterol were flown to Los Angeles for more tests.

Mexico won 5-0 over Cuba on Thursday after opening last Sunday with a 5-0 rout of El Salvador, a result that could be protested in the wake of doping positives revealed Thursday from a May 21 test during Mexico's training camp.

CONCACAF, football's governing body for North and Central America and the Caribbean had said Thursday that the victory over El Salvador would stand.

On Friday, the governing body said it wanted more information before deciding whether Mexico would be able to call up replacement players for the remainder of the Gold Cup, the regional championship.

"The committee has asked the Mexican federation to provide more details regarding the doping tests that discovered the banned substance clenbuterol in the urine samples of five players taken during a pre-Gold Cup training camp in Mexico in May," CONCACAF said in a statement on its website.

Goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, defenders Francisco Rodriguez and Edgar Duenas and midfielders Antonio "Sinha" Naelson and Christian Bermudez tested positive for the banned muscle-building drug.

Naelson, a Brazil-born playmaker whose flew home to his father's funeral in Sao Paolo before joining Mexico for the Gold Cup, was angry about the positive test.

"Right now, I am angry. The sadness comes later," he told CONCACAF. "You are trying to get up after being knocked down and then you are hit and knocked down again. That is difficult and even more so knowing that you didn't do anything.

"I didn't commit a crime or make any mistakes. My career will not be tainted for something I didn't do. Everyone knows me. Fourteen years in Mexican soccer and I've never had a problem."

Ochoa, who has just finished his contract with Mexican side Club America, said on the CONCACAF website that he was shocked by the doping positive.

"It was surprising to all of us," Ochoa said. "We don't have anything to hide. We are here to face the issue. We have a clear conscious because we haven't done anything that is incorrect."

The defending champion Mexicans, who complete group play Sunday at Chicago against Costa Rica, are among 12 CONCACAF nations competing for the regional crown and a berth in the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup.

Mexican national team director Hector Inarittu brought the players to Los Angeles for further tests at the UCLA doping laboratory even as officials investigate the team's claims that eating tainted beef and chicken caused the positive tests.

"This is an accident," Inarittu said in a posting on the CONCACAF website.

"We will wait for all the results and see what the department of agriculture in Mexico finds in the meat that we used."

Mexican team doctor Jose Luis Serrano said players were not provided any supplements during the training camp and wondered about so many players testing positive for the same substance at the same time.

"There is no remote absolute possibility that this happened because of a supplement," Serrano said. "I think there is no literature that has five positive tests with only one substance in one event."

While US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) reports have shown clenbuterol is used to promote growth in livestock, the drug is illegal in Europe and the United States.

USADA calls the risk of tainted meat causing a positive result remote.

Ochoa, 26, would not comment on how the doping positive might impact hopes that a European side might be interested in signing him.

"Of course this is disappointing," Ochoa said. "It's something that can happen to anyone at any restaurant or at any other place. Unfortunately, it happened to us.

"But we are not worried because we were told that the substance lasts only three days in your body. Before they tested us, we were eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at the performance center during the camp.

"We didn't take any medicine or a weird substance."

Naelson wondered how only select teammates tested positive when all ate from the same training table.

"We ate the same thing that everyone ate. Unfortunately we had the bad luck," Naelson said. "I don't know where the situation comes from but I am sure that we didn't take anything that has not been checked.

"If I had an explanation I'd give it to you with pleasure but I don't know what's going on."