According to court papers related to an ongoing defamation case, lawyers for the former TV network Al Jazeera America claim Peyton Manning confirmed doping allegations made against him in a 2015 documentary.
In The Dark Side: Secrets of the Sports Dopers, Al Jazeera America reported that Manning took human growth hormone that had been sent to him under the name of his wife, Ashley.
Manning has always denied that claim and was cleared of any wrongdoing by the NFL.
But new court memos in a defamation case filed against Al Jazeera by baseball players Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard over their involvement in the documentary allege Manning’s lawyers “confirmed much” of what the film indicated about him when they were contacted before it first aired.
Exactly what was confirmed is unclear, but the documents later state the Mannings corroborated many of the documentary’s “most explosive claims” through their lawyers.
Manning’s camp responded with this statement to The Hollywood Reporter:
“Al Jazeera’s self-serving claim that Peyton Manning’s attorneys ‘confirmed’ Al Jazeera’s allegations about Peyton Manning is absolutely false. In fact, information was provided to Al Jazeera that confirmed the Al Jazeera allegations about Peyton Manning were unfounded. In addition, the sole source for Al Jazeera’s allegations has publicly recanted them. Moreover, the NFL conducted an extensive investigation of the claims raised in Al Jazeera’s programs and found no evidence to support them. This is a desperate move by Al Jazeera to distract the courts from its own wrongdoing.”
Al Jazeera America shuttered three and a half months after the documentary first aired.
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