Alexis Sanchez: Arsene Wenger admits Arsenal responsible for Manchester United signing missing drugs test

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Arsène Wenger has confirmed that Alexis Sanchez missed a drugs test while completing his transfer to Manchester United but insists Arsenal have “nothing to hide”.

Sanchez became embroiled in an anti-doping storm on Thursday night after it emerged he was not present for a visit to Arsenal from doping control officers on 22 January, the day he moved to United.

The 29-year-old is likely to have fallen foul of the Football Association’s ‘whereabouts’ rules, with Sanchez, United and Arsenal failing to keep authorities abreast of his location while he moved north from London.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Sanchez or by the clubs, but an offence could result in a strike against any one of the parties.

If a club or an individual player receives three strikes in a 12-month period, they are deemed to have committed an anti-doping violation.

Speaking on Friday, Wenger confirmed that Sanchez missed a drugs test and that on the day in question, Sanchez’s attendance would still have been Arsenal’s responsibility as he was not yet a United player.

“Look, on Monday there was a lot going on and it was a special day for Alexis Sanchez because he had to do paperwork, he had to travel and is he still our player on Monday or not, you don’t know with negotiations going on.,”

“I think it’s a special event for him to miss a drugs test because he was certainly somewhere else with his agent and overall he has been tested so many times here that it is no worry for me that he has any doping problem. It’s just a bad day for him to be tested.

“Honestly, on the administration side certainly it would still be our responsibility because on the day he had not moved, so maybe this will be down to our us and our responsibility,” Wenger confirmed.

“I don’t know what really happened but usually we always try on request to get our players available and always co-ordinate well. I don’t know what really happened, I’ll have to check that.”

Wenger said Arsenal were yet to receive any contact from the FA regarding the matter.

“It doesn’t happen a lot,” he added. ”It happened with us with [Cesc] Fabregas who went to Spain for treatment and we lost contact in Spain and they couldn’t find him because he was at the doctor’s office, so sometimes it can be difficult to locate the player at the right moment, but although there is a number of controls that we have, it doesn’t happen a lot.

“I’m quite relaxed because we have nothing to hide, and we always try our best to cooperate with doping control. I pushed always for football to do more against doping so I don’t see why we should not cooperate, we try our best but it was a special day.”

The Arsenal manager added: “The intention of Alexis was certainly not to hide, it wasn’t our intention to hide anything. We have nothing to hide.”

Manchester United and the FA declined to comment on the matter when approached by The Independent.