The Italian Anti-Doping Tribunal imposed a four-year ban on Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba on Thursday, the maximum penalty. Juventus confirmed this to the AFP news agency. Pogba will appeal against the ruling.
At the beginning of December it was announced that the prosecutor of the Italian anti-doping agency demanded a four-year ban for the French footballer. Thirty-year-old Pogba, 91-time French international and world champion with Les Bleus in 2018, tested positive for the use of synthetic testosterone, a muscle-enhancing drug, on August 20 last year after a match between Udinese and Juventus. The Juventus midfielder has been provisionally suspended since September 12.
According to Pogba, the positive test is due to a dietary supplement prescribed to him by a doctor in the United States. He is said to have previously refused a plea deal – pleading guilty and receiving a two-year suspension.
Pogba has played for Juventus again since the summer of 2022, which he left for Manchester United in 2016. The transfer cost 110 million euros, which made him the world’s most expensive footballer for a while (until Neymar’s transfer from Barcelona to PSG in 2017). The four-year suspension threatens the end of Pogba’s football career.
