Peyton Manning takes swipe at Al Jazeera America closing

If anyone was upset by news that cable news channel Al-Jazeera America was closing after only two years, Peyton Manning was definitely not one of them.

The Denver Broncos quarterback — who was linked to a banned human growth hormone by the network last month — made light of the announcement that Al Jazeera will soon shut down after failing to attract a wide enough audience in the US.

"I'm sure it's just devastating to all their viewers," Manning sneered at a press conference in Colorado Wednesday.

And with good reason.

The fledgling news outlet  aired a documentary, The Dark Side: Secrets of the Sports Dopers, and reported that Manning ordered shipments of HGH which were shipped to his wife Ashley while he was rehabilitating from a neck injury in 2011.

The 39-year-old Manning has vehemently denied Al Jazeera's accusations and denounced the report as "complete garbage" before threatening to sue the network.

Manning did miss the entire 2011 season as he was undergoing career-saving neck surgeries leading to his departure from the Indianapolis Colts before rebounding to a successful run in Denver.

In October 2013, the channel was launched after opening 12 bureaus in the United States and a state-of-the art studio in New York — backed by a $500 million investment.

However it had trouble persuading cable and satellite companies to carry it, and only had about 30,000 viewers in prime-time. 

A spokesman for Al Jazeera — which is owned by the Quatari royal family — told The Washington Post that news of the closure will not affect the department that reported the alleged doping scandal.

So far, nothing has come from the allegations and it doesn't sound like Peyton is too worried about them anyway.

Peyton Manning's wife was repeatedly sent HGH according to 'impeccably placed' source: Report

Peyton Manning returned to action on Sunday night, getting behind center in the third quarter of the Broncos' game against the Chargers and helping his team land the AFC's top seed. But, rising up with the quarterback's game is another source who alleges that the NFL superstar's wife, Ashley, had human growth hormone sent to their home.

A second "impeccably placed" source reportedly confirmed that HGH was repeatedly mailed to Manning's wife while he was recovering from neck surgeries in 2011.

Journalist Deborah Davies, who worked on last week's Al Jazeera documentary, which claimed Manning was linked to banned performance-enhancing drugs, said another anonymous source backed up the allegations made by pharmacist Charlie Sly.

Sly was secretly filmed saying Ashley Manning was sent human growth hormone while getting treatment at the Guyer Institute but retracted his words after discovering he had been recorded.

Davies told CNN: "We had a second source. Absolutely impeccably placed, knowledgeable and credible who confirmed exactly what Charlie Sly said.

"Shipments of HGH were repeatedly sent to Ashley Manning in Florida and other places in the US," said Davies. 

"This is a source we cannot name, we could not name. The value of that source was to add to the level of confidence we already had in what Charlie Sly was saying."

Last week the Broncos quarterback furiously denied the allegations in a seven-minute long rant on ESPN, claiming the allegations against his wife were "a freaking joke."

The investigative documentary shows Sly telling British amateur hurdler Liam Collins he was "part of a medical team that helped [Manning] recover" from neck surgery. 

"All the time we would be sending Ashley Manning drugs," Sly boasts. "Like growth hormone, all the time, everywhere, Florida. And it would never be under Peyton's name, it would always be under her name.

"Him and his wife would come in after hours and get IVs and s---."

Sly's account of the story was dismissed as hearsay after it was found out he didn't even work at the clinic in 2011.

Dr. Dale Guyer, from the Guyer Institute, has come forward to say the allegations were "completely fabricated."

HGH, along with other performance-enhancing drugs, is banned by the NFL and no one has tested positive for it since it was outlawed in 2011. The league has only been routinely testing players for it since 2014.