Reports: Peyton Manning Will ‘Probably’ Sue Over Doping Allegations

On Sunday night, Al Jazeera aired a shocking documentary called The Dark Side: Secrets of the Sports Dopers. The hour-long special was an Al Jazeera original piece, investigating the underbelly of professional sports steroid use; it cited many huge-profile U.S. athletes, including Denver Broncos quarterback and American sports icon Peyton Manning.

The Manning revelation of the documentary comes about in the form of an recorded undercover conversation with a former employee with Indianapolis’ Guyer Institute — an “alternative medicine practitioner” for anti-aging — towards the end of the special. Although the employee Charlie Sly has since recanted his comments in full, the video reveals Sly describing the process by which Human Growth Hormone was secretly mailed to Manning’s wife while the All-Pro quarterback battled back from injury in 2011.

Pro Football Talks’ Mike Florio reported on Sunday that Manning is considering counter action as a result of the allegations:

Peter King of TheMMQB.com and NBC’s Football Night in America asked Manning whether he’ll sue, and here’s what Peyton told King: “Yeah, I probably will. I’m that angry.”

“It’s a joke. It’s a freaking joke.” Peyton Manning refutes Al Jazeera report that pharmacist sent HGH to his home. https://t.co/6FETJwkv5X

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 27, 2015

Manning says he’ll “probably” sue over HGH allegations: “I’m that angry.” https://t.co/OSZiXmrU2z (via @NBCSports) pic.twitter.com/L3kOsLpDem

— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 28, 2015

Since entering the NFL Draft in 1998, Peyton Manning has broken nearly every imaginable record at the quarterback position, and is widely heralded as arguably the sports’ greatest hero. In addition to one Super Bowl victory and several league MVP distinctions, Manning has appeared in dozens of commercials over his career, and hosted Saturday Night Live in 2007. This is the first time that claims have been made tying the superstar to performance enhancing drugs of any kind.

On Good Morning America Monday, Dan Abrams predicted that Manning is unlikely to actually sue, pointing out that the star quarterback would have to prove, as a legal matter, that there was “reckless disregard for the truth” on the part of Al Jazeera not just that they got it wrong.

[image via Wikipedia Commons]
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