Former French Sports Minister Marie-George Buffet has claimed that surprise doping controls on the French national football team were suspended before the 1998 World Cup .

The admission, relaunched by the television channel Bfmtv, is included in the documentary "Zidane, the factory of a legend", dedicated to the new coach of the Bleus.

After an unscheduled test on French players during a training camp in Tignes in 1997, coach Aimé Jacquet and the Paris Federation protested, considering the tests an obstacle to their preparation .

Following the controversy, Alain Garnier, the doctor appointed by the Ministry of Sport to conduct the tests in Tignes, recounts in the documentary that Buffet herself verbally warned him "not to bother Les Bleus again until the World Cup," which the French ultimately won. Responding to this claim, the former minister admitted: "If Dr. Garnier says that, then yes, it must be true. It was a step backwards in the fight against doping."

(Unioneonline)

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