Papu Gómez: “I went from being world champion to no one calling me today”

A year and a half after his official departure, Papu Gomez He wanted to break his silence and speak openly about how the scandal occurred that has shaken his life as a footballer and also as a professional, having been sanctioned months ago for doping at a time when he was a member of Sevilla FC. In an interview with journalist Juan Pablo Varsky, the Argentine wanted to detail what happened, in his opinion, in that error to which he attributes said case. «I went from being world champion, to no one calling me today, disappearing from the media or not playing anymore. hOh, you have to know how to live with that. Neither when you are up there are you the best, nor are you the worst now. You just have to prioritize other things… After the sanction I was excited to return, but when I received the maximum penalty my world fell apart,” he noted in said intervention.

«I received it by email two days before the final«, he explains, referring to the results, before the match against the French team: »I received that he had tested positive. In the World Cup final, Having news like that reach you is horrible.“I got sick those two days, I was very bad, with a fever, my defenses probably lowered,” responded the 37-year-old footballer, who assured that he did not want to say anything to his teammates or his own coach despite the fact that he was already handling that information of such magnitude for your present and future. The version that the former Sevilla player himself has always defended is that he had previously ingested his children’s cough syrup to calm a cough one night.

«I didn’t want to tell anyone because I didn’t want people to be anywhere other than playing in the world final. It seemed very selfish of me to go and tell something ugly like that to the boys who were about to play in a world final,” said Papu Gómez, who preferred to keep it to himself so as not to interfere with the team’s objectives. And he broke down the details of that problem: «I arrived at night, early in the morning in Seville, I generally took a pill after the games, because it was very difficult for me to sleep. I go to bed and in the middle of the night I get a coughing fit. I tell my wife to give me cough syrup. There was my youngest son’s, Milo’s, and he gives me a small cup. “I took it,” he reiterated.