SPORTS

Bourousis caught up in doping scandal

It appears that the match-fixing scandal in domestic soccer has led to a doping revelation in Greek basketball, as leaked telephone conversation transcripts indicate that Olympiakos’s Yiannis Bourousis asked Kavala soccer club owner Makis Psomiadis for «more performance-enhancing drugs,» having already made use of some.

According to leaked transcripts of tapped conversations, which the National Intelligence Service (EYP) was able to listen to after a warrant was issued by judicial authorities, the Olympiakos forward, who also plays for Greece, spoke to one of the major figures of the soccer match-fixing network to ask for a banned substance.

Psomiadis, who has been named by the police but not arrested yet, was willing to offer him more of the banned substance, adding that «this makes my soccer players stay up all night.»

The conversation appears to suggest that Bourousis used the drug in April and then asked for some more ahead of the league finals with Panathinaikos in May.

Reports add that in the same conversation, Bourousis brands the owners of his club «stupid,» and that he is now likely to be axed from his team.

However, what the story also revealed, which has been confirmed, is that no doping tests whatsoever were carried out during the basketball season that just ended. This was due to outstanding debts owed by league organizer ESAKE to the testing team. Reports put the amount at no more than 35,000 euros.

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