NFL, MLB will investigate players named in Al Jazeera report

Published 10:30 am Sunday, December 27, 2015

Major League Baseball and the NFL will each investigate explosive claims made in an Al Jazeera documentary that legendary quarterback Peyton Manning and other athletes, including Ryan Zimmerman of the Washington Nationals and Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies, used performance-enhancing drugs supplied by an Indianapolis-based anti-aging clinic, according to two people familiar with the leagues’ thinking.

The report, scheduled to air Sunday night, used information it said was gathered by an undercover reporter who was actually a former athlete, Liam Collins, a British hurdler. It yielded a flurry of retorts and denials Sunday morning, including a recanting of statements made by one of its primary sources.

Charlie Sly, a pharmacist who worked with the Indianapolis-based Guyer Institute, makes claims to Collins that he helped treat Manning during his recovery from a neck condition in 2011. Collins secretly recorded his conversations with Sly.

Sly, though, released a YouTube video Sunday morning saying the statements he apparently made to Collins were untrue. Additionally, Sly said he did not work at the Guyer Institute until a 2013 internship, after Manning had left Indianapolis to join the Denver Broncos.

“The statements on any recordings or communications that Al Jazeera plans to air are absolutely false and incorrect,” Sly said on the video.

Manning, who the report claims was supplied with human growth hormone, issued a denial Sunday morning denouncing the report as “garbage.” The Broncos also released a statement saying they doubted the report’s veracity.

“For the record, I have never used HGH,” Manning said. “It absolutely never happened. The whole thing is totally wrong.”

Sly named Zimmerman, the Nationals’ longest-tenured player, and Philadelphia first baseman Howard as players who received Delta-2, a hormone supplement. An attorney for the pair sent a statement to the Washington Post early Sunday.

“The extraordinarily reckless claims made against our clients in this report are completely false and rely on a source who has already recanted his claims,” attorney William Burck said.

It is typical for sports league to investigate any claims of drug use that violates terms of their collectively bargained drug policies.