AFP wire report on Dr Diego Schwarzstein, 2 May 2014 (via El Espectador and Vanguardia)

Established wire or investigative reporting

AFP wire report on Dr Diego Schwarzstein, 2 May 2014 (via El Espectador and Vanguardia)

Agence France-Presse · 2014-05-02

Partially retrievedesNot marked independent

Supports

Disputed interpretation: Barcelona paid for the entire treatment.
Unsupported claim audit: The treatment cost approximately $35,000 in total and involved two injections a day.
Unsupported claim audit: Steroids or doping helped Messi.
Growth-hormone deficiency diagnosed; first consultation with Dr Diego Schwarzstein, January 1997
FC Barcelona's assumption of the treatment cost — the undertaking is confirmed, its scope is disputed
Cost of the growth-hormone treatment — best-attributed figure and the documented drift in the reported figures

Retrospective physician interview covering 1997-2003, corrected in the Phase 1 contemporaneity audit from contemporaneous to retrospective. The article's lead date of 1998 is an internal wire error contradicted within the body of the same article. Marked NOT independent: this and the other treatment accounts are common-source, deriving from the treating physician and from family and club recollection.