Grapevine

Paul Pogba drug ban reduced to 18 months, can play football from March

Pogba’s four-year doping ban is slashed on appeal, opening the door to the French star signing with a new club.

Paul Pogba’s doping suspension has been cut from four years to 18 months after experts supported the French football player’s insistence that he had unintentionally ingested a banned substance, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) says.

The 91-times capped World Cup winner was provisionally suspended by Italy’s anti-doping organisation, NADO Italia, in September 2023 after testing positive for DHEA, a banned substance that raises levels of testosterone, in August 2023 after a match between Juventus and Udinese.

CAS reduced the sentence last week with Pogba saying his “nightmare is over”. The 31-year-old, who has a contract with Italy’s Juventus until June 2026, will be eligible to return to football in March.

In a statement released on Monday, CAS said Pogba had argued that his ingestion of DHEA was not intentional and had occurred after he consumed a supplement prescribed to him by a doctor in Florida.