‘Hard to trace’ cause of Spurs bug

TOTTENHAM’S club doctor insists it will be incredibly difficult to track down the cause of the food poisoning which damaged their Champions League hopes.

Ten Spurs players were struck down with suspected food poisoning at the club’s team hotel in Canary Wharf, east London, prior to their final game of the season against West Ham at Upton Park on Sunday.

Spurs wanted to delay the game but that was vetoed by the Premier League and the police.

The players decided to play the fixture but lost 2-1 — allowing rivals Arsenal to clinch fourth position in the Premiership and a place in the Champions League next season.

Spurs are currently awaiting the results of scientific tests on the food before deciding whether to pursue legal action against the hotel or the Premier League.

But club doctor Kalpesh Parmar does not believe it will be easy to pinpoint the cause of the illness and new cases were reported yesterday.

Parmar revealed: “Given the nature of such infection, it is incredibly difficult to determine the origin. It could be passed by food contamination or human contact. In respect of the tests that have been conducted it will be at least 48 hours before we have results.

“Early indications are that it is going to be extremely difficult to pinpoint accurately the origin.

“The most badly-affected players were Michael Dawson, Michael Carrick, Lee Barnard and Edgar Davids, but the list goes on.

“Teemu Tainio called today to say he had diarrhoea and vomiting, the same symptoms as the other players. He was told to stay at home.

“I had a look at the players today and they are all still feeling a bit rough and very tired after the game. They have a lot of muscle soreness, which is to be expected.

“We’ve basically told them they need to re-hydrate themselves, they are feeling better in terms of their symptoms with the medication we gave them to clear up the sickness and it’s a question of letting whatever they had work out of their system.

“They are feeling better symptom-wise, but they are also feeling the effects of the game more than they normally would.

“I don’t know how they got through it to be honest — Michael Dawson playing 90 minutes after the state he was in and Michael Carrick, who had to come off, it was unbelievable.”

The club’s former director of football David Pleat believes the club would be wasting their time trying to pursue a legal action.

“Every club has at least 30 or 35 registered players. So I think Tottenham would find great difficulty in trying to either bring a legal action or overturn the result.

“It is particularly disappointing from Tottenham’s point of view for the season to finish in such fashion. I am told four or five players were pretty ropey, but there are degrees of ropiness.

“If they were really very, very ill, they possibly couldn’t have played at all. They do have the medical staff with them on an evening before a game when they are at an hotel.

“All the meal is pre-ordered and they know exactly what they are going to have before they arrive at the hotel and they are usually under supervision.”

However, Pleat does not believe Spurs were victims of sabotage.

“There have been many situations over the years where teams have come to the last game of the season needing to win either to achieve success or avoid relegation,” said Pleat.

“So the opportunities for this type of thing have been numerous over the years and I don’t believe the conspiracy theories. I just think they have been really unlucky and that they have picked up something in the food which affected them.”

A spokesperson for the club said: “Until we get the results of the tests, we don’t know whether it was the food or a virus. We should get the results of the tests in 48 hours.”

Food samples were removed from the hotel by the police and handed to the relevant environmental health officials for investigation. But the nature of the food tests means that it will take at least two days for scientists to discover what kind of bacteria, if any, was responsible for the poisoning outbreak.

Hotel manager Paul Downing admitted they had already launched their own probe into the incident.

But media lawyer Mark Stephens believes the club could have grounds for action against the hotel if they can prove they were at fault.

“They may have a claim if they are able to show their players were poisoned through some negligence or some culpable fault of the people who prepared the food.

“The problem, of course, is that they won’t be able to claim anything like the £10million which is being bandied around as a result of not getting into the Champions League.”

CHELSEA boss Jose Mourinho was last night named Barclays manager of the season after guiding the Blues to their second successive Premiership title. The Portuguese boss was given the award by the Barclays Award Panel, which includes representatives from football’s governing bodies, the media and fans.