Al Jazeera PED report released as Peyton Manning considers lawsuit

The Al Jazeera report that said Peyton Manning’s wife was sent HGH and set the NFL world buzzing has been released, and Manning said he is considering a lawsuit.

The report had Liam Collins, a British hurdler, go undercover with a hidden camera to investigate the use of PEDs in sports. Al Jazeera shows Charlie Sly, who the report claims to be a pharmacist, say that Manning’s wife received HGH in 2011. Sly does not state that Peyton Manning took HGH, but the report suggests it. Manning was the biggest name in the story, and the story has been picked apart since advance reports Saturday night described what the Al Jazeera story contained.

Manning angrily refuted it. The Denver Broncos said they didn’t believe it. Sly was described as “a former unpaid intern” by the Guyer Institute (via the Indianapolis Star), an anti-aging clinic in Indiana which treated Manning for a neck injury. The Guyer Institute and Sly said he wasn’t even working there in 2011, when Manning was treated, although Al Jazeera said he was. Sly then recanted everything he said on the hidden camera in Al Jazeera’s undercover report, saying everything he said was “absolutely false and incorrect.”

“I am recanting any such statements and there is no truth to any statement of mine that Al Jazeera plans to air,” Sly said in a short YouTube video.

Manning’s anger over the report has led to the threat of a lawsuit.

“Yeah, I probably will. I’m that angry,” Manning told NBC’s Peter King about a possible lawsuit against Al Jazeera.

The report shows Collins on hidden camera meeting with a few people and obtaining performance-enhancing drugs. When Collins goes to meet with Sly, major-league catcher Taylor Teagarden is with Sly and Teagarden is shown on a hidden camera discussing using steroids.

Sly is shown on the hidden camera linking specific drugs to a few athletes he names. Baseball players Ryan Howard and Ryan Zimmerman are mentioned as using Delta 2, a hormone supplement that works like a steroid. Both denied using it to Al Jazeera. Sly says Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison used Delta 2. Harrison denied it to Al Jazeera. The Green Bay Packers are mentioned often. Outside linebacker Mike Neal, Sly says, used Delta 2. When Sly went to “set Mike’s stuff up” in Green Bay, Sly says on the hidden camera, “I’m not even joking, more than half the team started to come by.” Sly says Packers linebacker Julius Peppers “might only take it two days a week,” referring to Delta 2. He said Packers linebacker Clay Matthews used newer drugs to boost hormone levels.

“He takes Ipamorelin,” Sly said about Matthews. “I don’t think that he takes HGH anymore, just because of the potential for a blood test.”

Sly said Matthews does not take Delta 2.

The Manning portion of the report (which starts at about 40:41 of the YouTube video below) doesn’t include as many details. Sly talks about how Manning is a cool guy, and “genuine,” and how drugs were sent to Manning’s wife.

“All the time we would be sending Ashley Manning drugs,” Sly said on the report. “Like growth hormone, all the time, everywhere, Florida. And it would never be under Peyton’s name, it would always be under her name.”

That’s pretty much the extent of what Sly says about Manning.

The report suggests that the drugs were related to Manning’s neck injury that knocked him out for the 2011 season but never makes that direct connection, nor does it say there is any proof the drugs were for Peyton Manning or that he used them.

All of the allegations against the NFL players in the report are based on the words of Sly speaking on a hidden camera. While he offers some specific details about some players, he said Sunday that he was “trying to pull one over on Collins to see if he had any idea of what he was talking about,” and that he had never seen the Mannings, via ESPN.com.

It’s easy to see why Manning is upset and is threatening a lawsuit. The implications are clear, even if the evidence and the words in the report are not.