In late 2015, Al Jazeera released a documentary that contains bombshell claims about several star athletes using performance enhancing-drugs. Peyton Manning, the most notable name revealed, vehemently denied the allegation at the time.
But as it turns out, Al Jazeera says Manning's camp corroborated its source's accusation.
The Hollywood Reported published court documents Friday related to baseball players Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard's defamation lawsuit against Al Jazeera. In them, the network says Manning's attorneys backed up claims made by Charlie Sly, who says in the documentary he worked for an anti-aging clinic in Indianapolis and sent HGH to Manning's house under his wife's name.
"Plaintiffs claim that Sly was the 'single' source and that Al Jazeera's outside law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine ,served as a second or 'corroborating source,' " the document says, per THR. "Although contradictory, both claims are false. First, DWT was retained long before any Al Jazeera reporter ever met Sly, to act as Al Jazeera's pre-broadcast libel review counsel for the Documentary. DWT was not a 'source' for anything that appeared in the Documentary. And the Documentary did not rely on a single source. The second, corroborating source for some of Sly's statements was the Mannings, who voluntarily communicated facts to Al Jazeera through their lawyers at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher."
Manning released the following denial via his spokesman. "Al Jazeera's self-serving claim that Peyton Manning's attorneys 'confirmed' Al Jazeera's allegations about Peyton Manning is absolutely false," it reads, per Bleacher Report. "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."
Sly curiously retracted his claims against Manning after his family had received a visit from Manning-hired investigators. The NFL announced in July 2016 it couldn't find credible evidence that ties Manning to HGH or other banned substances.
