Paul Pogba banned for four years after failed doping test Paul Pogba’s career in football could be over after the French World Cup winner was handed a four-year ban by Italian anti-doping authorities. The 30-year-old tested positive for DHEA, a banned substance that boosts endogenous testosterone, after playing for Juventus in the opening game of the season against Udinese on August 20. While Nado Italia has yet to publish confirmation of his sanction, The Times has been told that the former Manchester United midfielder has indeed received the maximum penalty for using such a banned substance. Pogba will now take his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the hope of reducing his sanction on appeal, but at this point the career of one of the finest players of his generation appears to be in shreds.
Is this one of those "bans", where it will get reduced to time served after a successful appeal and he'll move to the Saudi Arabian league for a couple of seasons earning big money, then retire. Promised so much, initial success and ending like a rapidly deflating balloon - quite like my life really, with only 30-50 million euro and a family blackmailing him with voodoo, being the minor differences.
He’s been a bone-idle twat on the pitch for years and all this time he was on PEDs. Add him to the list of talented players like Ben Arfa who pissed away their careers because they lack work-ethic and determination.
Great talent, and like many before him, **** work ethic - he was only fantastic for France because he had Kante doing all his running. No great loss.
To be fair to him, majority of athletes are on PEDs - just that some are allowed, some are not, depending on their sport's regulatory body. There won't be one premier league footballer who isn't taking supplements to boost testosterone levels after the age of 25, collagen to repair body damage and creatine. What is and isn't allowed is somewhat arbitrary. I'd hazard a guess that Pogba upped his dosage himself or didn't off cycle, and ignored his performance coach's advice and so got a positive reading as his blood levels were way out, maybe because his form had dipped, his age, he didn't take care to monitor how often he was talong it or just feeling that he was falling behind with his performances, so took a risk.
