USA Today Sports/Reuters
In unsealed court papers related to a defamation lawsuit against defunct news network Al Jazeera America, the network said NFL star Peyton Manning and his wife “confirmed” via their lawyers many of the doping allegations made against them in a documentary, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The 2015 documentary that alleged Manning was involved in illegal doping fell apart after the outlet’s source at the Guyer Institute in Indianapolis recanted his claims, and the institute denied he ever worked there. The source told an undercover reporter that Manning and his wife would “come in after hours and get IVs,” and the institute would send Manning’s wife “growth hormone...all the time.” In the documents, Al Jazeera states that the Mannings, through lawyers, “corroborated” their source’s claims. The network also says that the source only started denying his account after he was visited “by investigators hired by lawyers for National Football League player Peyton Manning[.]” It also claimed that the source’s on-video recant of the information he gave was prompted, saying that he was “reading a statement that was prepared for him while sweating profusely.” The NFL concluded in 2016 that Manning “did not use human growth hormone or any other banned performance-enhancing drugs” in response to the report. A statement from Manning's spokesperson claims that Al Jazeera's assertion that he confirmed the doping allegations was “absolutely false,” and the information provided to the network corroborating the claims was “unfounded.”