Who are these players who tested positive for doping?
The rest after this ad
The bad news doesn’t stop for Paul Pogba. The midfielder tested positive for testosterone. Temporarily suspended, the Frenchman can count on the support of his clan. As revealed by the Gazzetta dello Sport in today’s edition, the 30-year-old’s agent, Rafaela Pimenta, declared that her protégé “never wanted to break the rules” and wanted to “wait for the second opinion” of the sample taken during his doping control to best prepare your defense. Previously, other famous players have fallen for similar cases. For example, Samir Nasri was sentenced by UEFA to a six-month suspension for having used an intravenous infusion of vitamins in 2016. His suspension was extended to 18 months in August 2018. The former French international then had struggling to breathe new life into his career with a short stint at West Ham, before ending it at Anderlecht. Another known case, that of Adrian Mutu. Testing positive for cocaine in October 2004, the Romanian player was suspended for 7 months. Chelsea dismisses him for serious misconduct. But he did it again in 2010 with the colors of Fiorentina. This time, the attacker tested positive for sibutramine. He will be sentenced to 9 months of suspension by the National Anti-Doping Tribunal of the Italian Olympic Committee. The record for the longest suspension for a football player is attributed to Francesco Flachi. A repeat offender, yet another positive test for cocaine pushes the Italian Olympic Committee to sanction him with a 12-year suspension. It is this same substance which excluded Maradonna from the 1994 World Cup. More recently, we were treated to the André Onana scandal. In 2020, the Cameroonian goalkeeper tested positive for Furosemide, a powerful diuretic. UEFA suspended the player for a year, then his sentence was reduced to 9 months some time later by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Others fared better, like José Luis Palomino who was cleared by the Italian anti-doping authorities. The central defender of Atalanta Bergamo had tested positive for Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid which is banned in July 2022. In 2016, Mamadou Sakho also fell through the cracks after testing positive for a fat burner. The World Anti-Doping Agency even admitted its error and assured that it would pay damages to Sakho.
The length of Asensio’s absence is known
Very bad news for Marco Asensio and Luis Enrique. At the end of last week, Spain had a solid defeat against Georgia, winning with a score of 7-1 against the Eastern European country. A match where Luis de la Fuente, however, saw how several rather important players in his eyes were injured, like Dani Olmo, who was boiling at the start of the season, but also Marco Asensio. The PSG player suffered a contusion on his foot, and had to leave his partners shortly before half-time. He will therefore be absent for the first two Champions League matches, against Borussia Dortmund at the Parc des Princes on September 19, and at Newcastle on October 4. He will also be unavailable for the Ligue 1 clashes against Nice, OM and Rennes. He could be back for the duel against Strasbourg on October 22 if all goes well.
Read Pogba affair: the instructions for the food supplement warned of the risks of doping
Blaise Matuidi’s tribute to Marco Verratti
It’s only a matter of hours before Marco Verratti’s transfer to Al-Arabi is made official. If some fans would have liked him to stay given his contribution to the conquest of numerous national titles for PSG, others felt that Marco Verratti had served his time by highlighting his lifestyle, sometimes far from impeccable. This is not the case for his former teammate, Blaise Matuidi. The ex-Parisian returned to the career of the native of Pescara, whom he considers to be a major player who marked the history of PSG for a decade. “ In my eyes, given the titles he won. Marco marked the history of PSG. When he arrived, he was very young, carefree, no one knew him. But from its first balloons, we saw that it was a little gem that was going to make the Parc des Princes vibrate… Perhaps that’s what some people want to remember. And Marco never hid the fact that he was a bon vivant. Don’t forget that at the start, he’s a kid who arrives in Paris from Pescara. It’s not the same pace of life. But he also knew how to be serious. I can assure you that Marco never arrived late for training, that he was always a great professional. »
Pub. 09/13/2023 6:41 p.m. Updated 09/13/2023 8:26 p.m.
2023-09-13 16:41:11
#stars #fallen #doping
