Former Real Madrid legend Roberto Carlos has been dragged into a doping controversy after a German documentary alleged he was one of at least two Brazilian international footballers who took banned performance enhancing drugs around the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea, a tournament Brazil won.
During a long investigation into doping in Brazilian sport, led by the acclaimed journalist Hajo Seppelt, undercover reporters obtained substances including steroids and EPO from a doctor, Julio Cesar Alves, who has claimed to provide doping substances to dozens of Brazilian stars across multiple sports for more than a decade.
Runner Eliane Pereira, who has represented her country, told Seppelt she had been given doping products since the age of 17 by Alves.
Marco Aurelio Klein, who was until recently the head of Brazil's anti-doping organisation, told Seppelt that a dossier of sportsman's statements about their visits to Dr Alves had been handed to prosecutors in 2015.
Among paperwork compiled as part of a potential case against Dr Alves was a claim that Roberto Carlos, who won the Champions League three times with Real among many trophies in his career, visited Dr Alves in July 2002, within weeks of the World Cup.
Filmed by undercover reporters pretending to want drugs for performance-enhancing reasons, Dr Alves told them: 'I treated Roberto Carlos. The national player. He came to me at the early age of 15. He was a lanky boy. I developed his thighs. It was me who made Roberto Carlos's thighs into what they are today.'
Seppelt and his team from ARD television made multiple attempts to obtain a response from Roberto Carlos, including at last weekend's Champions League final in Cardiff. The 44-year-old, widely regarded as one of the greatest left-backs of all time, declined to make any comment.
The documentary, 'Doping top secret: Brazil's dirty game', also included Dr Alves making claims that he continues to work with a wide range of sportsmen, including cyclists from Spain, Belgium and Germany, and footballers from around the world, including in Europe.
Asked later to confirm to ARD what he had said while being covertly filmed, he declined to respond.
Marco Aurelio Klein, the former anti-doping head, alleges that the Brazilian authorities deliberately took a soft approach to testing Brazil athletes in the run-up to the Rio Games, doing no unannounced tests in the months before the Games. 'This is a really terrible situation,' he said.Â
Credit: Daily Mail