9:50pm: Manning has issued a strongly worded denial through the Broncos (Twitter link via Albert Breer of NFL.com):
“The allegation that I would do something like that is complete garbage and is totally made up. It never happened. Never. I really can’t believe somebody would put something like this on the air. Whoever said this is making stuff up.”
9:04pm: In 2011, when Peyton Manning was recovering from a career-threatening neck injury, an Indianapolis anti-aging clinic supplied him and his wife with human growth hormone – which is on the NFL’s banned substances list – according to a pharmacist who worked at the clinic, Travis Waldron and Ryan Grim of The Huffington Post write.
Guyer Institute pharmacist Charlie Sly claims he was “part of a medical team that helped [Manning] recover.” Sly made that statement to Liam Collins, a British hurdler who went undercover for an Al Jazeera documentary, “The Dark Side,” centering on the global epidemic of performance-enhancing drugs in sports.
“All the time we would be sending Ashley Manning drugs,” says Sly on video, unaware that Collins was taping him. “Like growth hormone, all the time, everywhere, Florida. And it would never be under Peyton’s name, it would always be under her name.”
Sly also declares that Manning and his wife showed up at the clinic after normal business hours for intravenous treatments.
In response, Manning’s agent, Tom Condon, rejected Sly’s allegations to Al Jazeera and referred to them as “outrageous and wrong.”
“The treatment he received at the Guyer Institute was provided on the advice of his physician and with the knowledge of team doctors and trainers,” said Condon, who neither confirmed nor denied that growth hormones were sent to Manning’s wife.
“Any medical treatment received by Ashley is a private matter of hers, her doctor, and her family,” Condon said.
As noted by Waldron and Grim, the league banned HGH in 2011 but didn’t begin testing for it until 2014. No NFL player has ever tested positive for it.
In addition to Manning, Sly and fellow pharmacist Chad Robertson name Packers linebackers Mike Neal and Julius Peppers, Steelers LB James Harrison and ex-NFL tight end Dustin Keller as players they supplied with banned substances. Neal, Peppers, Harrison and Keller are all linked to hormone supplement Delta-2, which Sly says is designed to stay ahead of drug tests.
Further, Sly contends to have provided prescription painkiller Percocet to Packers LB Clay Matthews, whom Sly says also attempted to obtain Toradol – another painkiller. Toradol is banned in many countries, but not the United States.
Harrison issued a denial to Al Jazeera, while Neal, Peppers, Matthews and Keller didn’t respond to the network’s request for comment, per Waldron and Grim.