Soccer

Paul Pogba could face ban of up to four years after failing drug test

Player provisionally suspended by Italian anti-doping authority with reports claiming Juventus midfielder tested positive for testosterone

Paul Pogba could face a ban of up to four years after failing a drug test. Reports in Italy claim that the France international tested positive for testosterone. Photograph: Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images
Paul Pogba could face a ban of up to four years after failing a drug test. Reports in Italy claim that the France international tested positive for testosterone. Photograph: Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images
Mon Sept 11 2023 - 19:52

Paul Pogba could face a ban of up to four years after failing a drug test. Reports in Italy claim that the France international tested positive for testosterone in a random drug test following Juventus’s Serie A game against Udinese on 20 August, when he was an unused substitute.

Elevated levels of testosterone were reported to have been found, which means Pogba’s second sample would also need to be checked. Pogba has been provisionally suspended by the Italian anti-doping authority (NADO).

According to Italian media, Pogba has three days to produce a counter-analysis of the result. If found guilty of doping, a suspension of between two and four years could be handed out. Juventus and the Italian Football Federation have been approached for comment.

According to Fifa, players can be banned for two or four years, subject to appeal and a reduction or suspension, if found to have violated its anti-doping regulations, depending on whether it can be proven that the rule violation was intentional.

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The 30-year-old has only returned to action this season having missed most of the last campaign with knee and hamstring injuries. He rejoined Juventus after leaving Manchester United following a largely disappointing six-year spell at Old Trafford.

Earlier on Monday, Pogba said he was almost driven to walk away from football after allegedly being blackmailed by an organised crime gang. The 30-year-old’s brother Mathias was detained in September 2022 on suspicion of involvement in the plot, which Paul Pogba claimed amounted to a bid to extort £11.1m from him. Mathias Pogba was released in December and denies the charges.

Paul Pogba reported the incident to Turin prosecutors in July of last year, shortly after leaving Manchester United on a free transfer in order to rejoin Juventus. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Paul Pogba said: “When there is money you have to be careful. Money changes people. It can break up a family. It can create a war. Sometimes I was just by myself thinking: ‘I don’t want to have money anymore. I just don’t want to play anymore. I just want to be with normal people, so they will love me for me – not for the fame, not for the money.’

“Sometimes it’s tough. This life, you have to go through it. It will only make me stronger.”