Media attention has focused on the small number of professional road cyclists named; however, sportspeople from other disciplines including football and tennis have also been connected with the scandal, although they were not officially indicted.
[3][4] In March 2004 in an interview with the Spanish newspaper Diario AS, Jesús Manzano exposed systematic doping in his former cycling team, Kelme.
[8] On 23 May 2006, Guardia Civil arrested the directeur sportif of the Liberty Seguros–Würth team, Manolo Saiz, and four others including Fuentes, accused of doping practices with riders.
In one, belonging to Fuentes, they found a thousand doses of anabolic steroids, 100 packets of blood products, and machines to manipulate and transfuse them.
[16] ASO withdrew Comunitat Valenciana's invitation, moving riders to send blood samples to be analysed to prove their innocence.
The Spanish authorities lifted the secret of summary two days before the start of the 2006 Tour, formally involving all 56 riders found in Fuentes' lists.
Francisco Mancebo, fourth the previous year and involved in the case, ended his career, according to his directeur sportif Vincent Lavenu.
In November 2006, El Mundo[citation needed] claimed that an anti-doping laboratory in Barcelona which analyzed 99 bags of blood plasma seized in Operación Puerto found "high levels of erythropoietin (EPO)".
The five – Joseba Beloki, Isidro Nozal, Sérgio Paulinho, Allan Davis and Alberto Contador – received a document clearing them of links to Operación Puerto, the Spanish newspaper El Diario Vasco reported.
[30] In January 2013, the Operacion Puerto trial went underway, and Eufemiano Fuentes offered to reveal the names of all the athletes who were his clients.
Julia Santamaria, the judge presiding the trial, told Fuentes that he was not under obligations to name any athlete other than the cyclists implicated.
[32] Additional appeals were filed by the Union Cycliste Internationale, the Italian National Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency, as well as by the prosecution.
[58] On 23 September 2006, former cyclist Jesús Manzano told reporters from France 3 that he had seen "well-known footballers" from La Liga visit the offices of Dr Fuentes.
[59] In May 2007 Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, at a World Anti-Doping Agency meeting in Montreal, was reportedly interested in the contents "of the Puerto file".
[60] Le Monde had reported in December 2006 that they had possession of documents of Fuentes detailing "seasonal preparation plans" for Spanish football clubs FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.
The documentation of the doctor also contained the inscriptions "RSOC" a couple of times and "Cuentas [bills] Asti" which most probably stands for Astiazarán, president of the club from 2001 to 2005.