Sports and in particular athletics has left a bad taste in the mouth of fans this past week as news broke that American athlete, Tyson Gay tested positive for a banned product. Gay has ‘manly’ admitted guilt by pulling out of next month’s World Athletics Championships. “I don’t have a sabotage story. I don’t have lies. I basically put my trust in someone and I was let down. I made a mistake.”

He was swiftly followed by Asafa Powell, a former world record holder in the 100m, also testing positive for a banned substance, Oxilofrine. The Jamaican’s country-woman, Sherone Simpson, also tested positive for the same banned substance. So over the past two months, we have had Veronica Campbell-Brown and then these noteworthy sprinters testing positive for banned substances.

This has again led to arguments that these ‘banned’ products – if they are not harmful to the human body should be allowed for every sprinter to use so that someday, we might have somebody run the 100m in say 7 seconds!

In Nigeria, the news that has dominated is the tiff between two former captains of the national team – current Super Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi and Sunday Oliseh. The Nigeria Football Federation must secretly be laughing itself crazy as these two giants grapple. The focus has been taken off them for the moment at least and they can have all the time for their purposed booty sharing. But someone should tell these two men that they are playing into the hands of their common adversary.

Please stop this media fight; there is bigger fish to fry. Like the humongous score-lines that were recorded in promotion playoff matches – the 79-0 and the 67-0 scores. Plateau United Feeders scored 72 goals in the second half, beating Akurba FC 79-0 while Police Machine scored 61 goals in the second half against Babayaro FC as the game ended 67-0; what a feat!

At the Tour de France, no rider has yet to be caught with some extras in their blood stream and Chris Froome seems to be riding away with the Yellow jersey at the moment but all that could change this week as the Tour continues on Tuesday. Stage 17 is an undulating 168km stage 16 from Vaison-la-Romaine to Gap.

The Ashes is on and England have taken a 1-0 lead over Australia going into this week but the highlight of the past week was the fearless performance of 19-year-old Australian, Ashton Agar.  The next series starts on Thursday at Lords.

And the football transfer window finally clicked into gear as Bayern Munich, under Pep Guardiola snagged former pupil, Thiago Alcantara from the paws of Manchester United for about $33 million. That agreement contains a clause that a friendly match will be played between the two clubs sometime in the next four years. From that friendly, a princely sum of $6.5 million of the transfer fee would come partly from income from the match and partly from Alcantara agreeing to forego some wages.

Looking forward to this week, the European women’s football tournament marches on, the Ashes continue and the football transfer window should get more frenetic.