Al Jazeera Says Peyton Manning’s Lawyers ‘Confirmed’ Doping Claims in Bombshell Doc

“The Dark Side: Secrets of the Sports Dopers” documentary sparked defamation case

Al Jazeera America, the now defunct arm of the channel in the United States, says that its source for doping claims made in a 2015 documentary about performance enhancing drugs in professional sports was none other than football legend Peyton Manning.

The 2015 documentary, “The Dark Side: Secrets of the Sports Dopers,” insists that Manning and other sports heavyweights had made use of performance enhancing drugs during their careers. Two of the players fingered in the doc, Ryan Howard and Ryan Zimmerman, filed suit against Al-Jazeera for defamation in January, 2016. Manning himself called much of the film a “total fabrication” at the time.

Now, unsealed court papers obtained by the Hollywood Reporter show that Manning, through his lawyer, former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, said that much of the information was true and that critical sourcing for the documentary provided by the pharmacist Charlie Sly has been accurate.

“The Mannings’ lawyers confirmed much of what Sly had said,” reads the newly unsealed papers,” according to THR.

Sly, who later recanted much of what was attributed to him, is accused of helping ferret the drugs to players through his employer, the Indianapolis-based Guyer Institute.

“I did part of my training at the Guyer Institute which is like this anti-aging clinic in Indiana. [Peyton Manning] and his wife would come in after hours and get IVs,” Sly said in a recording obtained by Al Jazeera.

“So one thing that Guyer does is he dispenses drugs out of his office which physicians can do in the United States it’s just not very many of them do it. … And all the time we would be sending [wife] Ashley Manning drugs. Like growth hormone, all the time, everywhere, Florida. And it would never be under Peyton’s name, it would always be under her name.”

Areas of the court papers have been redacted, making it unclear exactly what Olson revealed about the Manning disclosure. Manning did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment through his foundation.

Comments