Steelers linebacker James Harrison has agreed to meet with the National Football League about performance-enhancing drug allegations against him, his agent confirmed to the Post-Gazette this afternoon.
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Matthews, Harrison, Peppers and free agent Mike Neal were all informed by the NFL that they will be suspended immediately if they do not personally cooperate by August 25 with the league’s investigation into allegations raised by an Al Jazeera report.
The probe stems from a television report by Al-Jazeera featuring allegations by Charlie Sly, a former intern at an anti-aging clinic. The lead source for that report later recanted his claims.
Retired quarterback Peyton Manning was the fifth NFL player listed in the report and he complied with the league “investigation” because he wants to have a future role in an NFL front office.
“The Commissioner has directed that Messrs”. He talked about the latest AL-JAZEERA report and the fact that Julius Peppers and Clay Matthews are going to have to testify.
Neither the CBA nor the policy state that a player must agree to an in-person interview based upon random, baseless verbal remarks or face discipline for a failure to cooperate with a league investigation, union attorney Heather McPhee wrote then on Harrisons behalf.
Birch also said the league determined that an assertion made in Neal’s affidavit was “demonstrably false”. I never failed a drug test. Which at this point, also appears to be the plan for Matthews and Peppers.
“I’ll do what I have to do, they’ll do what they have to do”.
Allegations the four players had links to PED’s were raised for the first time in a documentary by al Jazeera America called The Dark Side. “I don’t know. It’s annoying, there’s no doubt about that”.
“If he keeps pushing this and gets suspended, now there is a suspicion by the public over him where there shouldn’t be”, Bouchette said.
“I mean there’s no way it’s going to cost them [any games], I don’t think, in this case”, Rodgers said. “We asked the same questions. Like I said in the past, I have nothing to hide, so it’s not an issue for me one way or the other”.
Neal, another linebacker with the Packers, spent his first six seasons with Green Bay.
The league’s deadline for cooperation from the four players is August 25.
A pair of pharmacists in the documentary, Charles Sly and Chad Robertson, claim the other four players were supplied with “steroid-like hormones”.
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The NFLPA requested from the NFL any additional evidence supporting an investigation of the players; the NFL did not provide any such evidence, nor did they inform the NFLPA or the players that any such evidence exists.
