Former Brazil international midfielder Daniel Carvalho has admitted that he received regular injections of anabolic steroids while playing at Russian club CSKA Moscow.
Carvalho, who now plays back in his homeland for Palmeiras, told Brazilian radio station ESPN Estadao that he was given the drugs because CSKA's medical staff considered him "weak".
"In Russian football there isn't any [anti-]doping," he said. "There were needles put into my vein, and on the sixth or seventh injection I stopped taking them because I discovered that it was going straight into my heart.
"I told them I didn't want to take it any more."
The 28-year-old Brazilian, who was Man of the Match in CSKA's UEFA Cup Final win over Sporting Lisbon in 2005, was initially a hit in Russia, and was capped three times by Brazil in 2006.
But a decline in his performances, amid questions over his physical fitness, have provoked criticism - and Carvalho now blames the doping regime he alleges he was subject to in Moscow.
"I left Brazil thin, very thin," Carvalho said. "Then I went to Russia for six years, and they gave me steroid injections, and after six months I'd put on eight kilos."
Carvalho's admission comes hot on the heels of another drug controversy surrounding a major Eastern European club, after Shakhtar Donetsk goalkeeper Oleksandr Rybka was banned by UEFA for two years after testing positive for a banned diuretic.
It is also not the first time CSKA have been involved in a doping issue. Defenders Sergey Ignashevich and Alexey Berezutsky were suspended, though eventually cleared of any offence, after failing to declare they were taking a common flu remedy before a test following a Champions League game in 2009.
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