Latest news with #anti-doping
New York Times
14 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Does football have a doping problem?
Arsene Wenger had a lot to get off his chest in the autumn of 2015. His Arsenal side were in danger of exiting the Champions League at the group stages and their 2-1 loss away to Dinamo Zagreb had become an acute source of irritation. Not because Arsenal had stumbled against their weakest opponents, but because the Croatian side had triumphed with a player — Arijan Ademi — who had returned a positive drugs test after playing the full 90 minutes. Advertisement Ademi would eventually be given a four-year suspension (later reduced to two on appeal) after traces of the banned steroid stanozolol were found in a routine urine sample, but Wenger bristled at Zagreb facing no disciplinary sanctions from UEFA, European football's governing body. 'That means you basically accept doping,' he said. Wenger also made clear his concerns that football had a problem. The wider game, he inferred, was ignorant of the threat of performance-enhancing drugs. 'To think we in football are just immune because we are football players is absolutely wrong,' he told reporters. 'We have to tackle these problems and not close our eyes.' Ten years on and they are pertinent comments to revisit. On Wednesday, the Football Association charged Chelsea forward Mykhailo Mudryk with violating its anti-doping rules after the banned substance meldonium was found in a urine sample when playing for his international team, Ukraine, in November. Mudryk, signed from Shakhtar Donetsk for a fee worth up to £89million ($119.5m) two years ago, must now decide whether to accept the charge, and whatever punishment — including a possible lengthy suspension — may follow, or ask for a hearing. It is the latest in a string of high-profile doping cases that have cast a cloud over football in recent years. Paul Pogba was found to have the banned anabolic agent dehydroepiandrosterone in his system when playing for Italian club Juventus in Serie A early in the 2023-24 season. The France international, 32, is free to play after serving an 18-month suspension, reduced from the initial four years on appeal, but remains without a club. Another World Cup winner, Alejandro Gomez, was also banned for two years after a test, carried out shortly before he formed part of Argentina's triumphant squad at Qatar 2022, was found to contain terbutaline. The positive result, which the player blamed on accidentally ingesting some of his son's cough medicine, only became apparent once Gomez had left Sevilla and joined Monza in 2023. He insisted he 'never intended to, and… will never, resort to a banned practice'. Advertisement Mudryk, who claimed he had 'never knowingly used any banned substances or broken any rules' and said he was 'working closely with my team to investigate how this could have happened' when it was first revealed he had failed a doping test, is likely to have his own defence and explanations, just as Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana did when banned for nine months when still with Ajax in 2021. Onana said the presence of the banned substance furosemide came from mistakenly taking a prescribed medication belonging to his wife. 'Everything was the result of a human mistake,' he said. Football has typically accepted these lapses and quietly moved on, adamant that the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PED) is primarily a problem for other sports. They remain infrequent enough to support that belief, but football's relationship with doping continues to be complicated. 'In my 22 years in the Premier League, I have never even heard a conversation about performance-enhancing drugs from players,' Geoff Scott, Tottenham Hotspur's former head of medicine, tells The Athletic. 'It's just not part of the game.' Scott is not alone in holding that view. The English Football Association has not suspended a player for a PED violation since Bambo Diaby, then of Barnsley in the Championship, was banned for two years in 2020. 'The benefits to a footballer are going to be marginal,' says Scott. 'Of course there are ways of improving physical fitness, but whether that makes you a better footballer is open to debate.' The FA, which oversees the process in England through the UK Anti Doping agency (UKAD), has confidence in the robustness of its testing. Figures obtained from UKAD detailed that 2,176 tests were carried out across the Premier League and EFL last season, with 982 of the samples collected from the 20 top-flight clubs. That would suggest each club is subjected to roughly 50 tests a season, but the random nature of the process ensures there are no guarantees every Premier League player will be asked to provide a sample during a 12-month window. Advertisement The overall testing numbers were 11 per cent down on the 2022-23 season, but football's authorities stress that it remains the most heavily tested sport by UKAD. Of the 8,516 tests carried out across all UK sports in the year ending March 2024, just over a third of all samples collected were from footballers, whose number admittedly eclipses all other professional sports. The doubts, though, come from what is left unreported. Through a Freedom of Information request from The Athletic, UKAD said that two players from the Premier League and Football League had returned an adverse analytical finding for a PED last season, as well as two the season before. None of the four faced any sanctions. There could be mitigating circumstances for the positive tests, such as the players in question having a valid therapeutic use exemption (TUE) or seeing the substance ingested through a permitted source, but the highly confidential process has long invited questions. The Daily Mail previously reported that 12 Premier League players were found to have traces of PEDs in tests between 2015 and 2020, with not one facing punishment. 'We take anti-doping in English football extremely seriously,' an FA spokesperson told The Athletic. 'We are fully compliant with the National Anti-Doping Policy of the UK Government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport; fund one of world sport's leading anti-doping programmes; and input into targeted, researched and intelligence-led drug testing that is directed by UK Anti-Doping. 'We also operate our own dedicated social drugs programme to safeguard the physical and mental wellbeing of footballers; and to uphold the values and ethics of the sport.' Football typically chooses not to roll out a programme where every player is tested, with UKAD reporting the average cost incurred in each test is £302. FIFA, the world governing body, said last year that every player selected for the 2022 World Cup had at least one sample analysed, but governing bodies in domestic leagues typically rely upon the constant threat of being tested acting as a sufficient deterrent. Doping control officers will arrive unannounced and accompany the chosen players until the testing process is complete. A training ground visit will typically see between four and eight players tested, while after a game, the number tends to be just two. At least 90ml of urine is required in the company of a chaperone for the most common analysis, but blood samples can also be taken. Advertisement 'I would say, on average, it's probably about once a month they're there (at training grounds),' says Scott. 'Sometimes it'll be in clusters and you might get them twice in a week. Other times, it might not be a visit for five or six weeks. 'Every player has to give a one-hour window every day to be tested. For the majority of people, that's at training, so the club will give a training schedule to UKAD and they're able to turn up. It's a very real prospect of being tested on any given day. They will not feel that it's underdone. They'll feel it's overdone.' And the powers go further. 'They (anti-doping teams) can also visit players' houses,' says Andy Renshaw, formerly head physio at Liverpool. 'I can remember them going to Jordan Henderson's house early in the morning after an England international when he'd played at Wembley. It's not massively common, but it has been known. 'It's a pain, but it's a necessity. It was all taken very seriously by us. We were all acutely aware that we were responsible as staff.' The higher the level, the more a player is tested. A regular international, who plays for a team competing in Europe, could be subjected to a dozen tests a year. UEFA runs its own programmes, unlinked to UKAD. Data for the 2023-24 season, made available by UEFA in December, outlined that 3,939 samples were collected across its club and national team competitions. Almost three-quarters of those (2,888) were in-competition tests, with the highest number carried out in the Champions League. Anti-doping controls were also in place at each of the 51 games played at Euro 2024 in Germany, with UEFA saying at least four players from each team were tested and samples analysed within 48 hours. It is not known if Mudryk was among the players tested after Ukraine's three games in the competition, but internationals expected to feature in a major tournament are often the subject of targeted testing in the run-up to major tournaments. Advertisement UEFA says that more than 15,000 drug tests were carried out either before or during its competitions between the 2019-20 and 2023-24 seasons, but it declined to detail the number of adverse findings in that period when asked by The Athletic. FIFA adopts a similar testing strategy, with its own anti-doping unit operating throughout the year. Its focus falls upon the tournaments under their own jurisdiction and, inevitably, that dictates the number of tests carried out in a given year. FIFA introduced its first doping controls at the 1970 World Cup. It was typically only used at flagship events and it took until 2008 for former president Sepp Blatter to finally sign up to the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) code, a uniform set of rules spanning all sports. The calendar year of 2023, as outlined in the governing body's annual anti-doping report, saw 1,592 tests carried out across FIFA's seven competitions in the men's and women's games, with the majority coming at the Women's World Cup in Australia. The total testing number was markedly down on the 2,921 of the previous year, but that figure was inflated by the 2022 Men's World Cup in Qatar. Including qualification, almost 2,200 tests were carried out, with FIFA saying that all 1,248 players called up to World Cup squads underwent at least one test. That would mean Gomez was passing a FIFA test at broadly the same time he was giving an adverse finding while a player with his Spanish team, Sevilla, with that result only coming to light once the Argentine had joined Monza in Italy. The only adverse finding FIFA detected ahead of or during Qatar belonged to Costa Rica international Orlando Moises Galo Calderon. He tested positive for the anabolic steroid clostebol two months before the start of the tournament when part of a national team training camp in South Korea. Calderon maintained his innocence, insisting his positive result had been the result of cross-contamination. Clostebol, he argued, had been ingested when applying an over-the-counter medication cream to his partner three times a day following surgery. Advertisement A FIFA disciplinary hearing accepted that 'on the balance of probability', Calderon had not intentionally doped, but still handed him a 12-month suspension, half of what he might have otherwise expected. FIFA's anti-doping report from 2022 also outlined that a further four international players from El Salvador (Erick Alejandro Rivera), Djibouti (Sabri Ali Mohamed), Ivory Coast (Sylvain Gbohouo) and Honduras (Wisdom Quaye) were suspended for between 18 months and four years for anti-doping violations during the qualification process. None of those nations, though, faced their own sanctions. The MLS, meanwhile, largely goes its own way. They operate outside of US Soccer and, therefore, do no fall under the jurisdiction of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). Players face testing through the league's substance abuse and behavioural health programme and policy, but the collective bargaining agreement outlines that clubs should be informed by the MLS of any adverse findings 'only when reasonably necessary'. Elite football can justifiably claim it has not faced the same problems as other sports focused upon the individual, where testing programmes can be far more stringent. In an 11-month cycle leading up to the Paris Olympics last year, for example, athletes from Kenya, China and Ethiopia underwent an average of at least nine out-of-competition tests, according to data from the Athletics Integrity Unit. Testing in athletics remains targeted, focusing most heavily on nations with the poorest anti-doping records. And the higher an athlete's profile, the greater the testing. Cycling, too, has made changes to cleanse a reputation sullied by the likes of Lance Armstrong. An anti-doping programme overseen by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) collected 15,200 samples in 2023, a 10 per cent increase on the previous year. Tennis, too, has faced its own doping controversies. Men's world No 1 Jannik Sinner returned two positive samples for clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid, in March 2024, part of the International Tennis Integrity Agency's (ITIA) programme of 9,151 tests on male and female tennis players over 12 months. The ITIA convened an independent hearing in which it was found that Sinner bore 'no fault or negligence' for those positive tests. The panel accepted the Italian's explanation that the positive tests had been caused via contamination from a spray used by his physiotherapist. Advertisement Wada accepted that Sinner did not intentionally dope, but challenged the idea that he should not be in some way responsible for his team's actions. It took the case to CAS, but it was never heard: Sinner and WADA entered into a case resolution agreement and the player was banned for three months. He later said that he 'did not want' to accept WADA's offer, adding that he 'knew what really happened', but was conscious that entering into the case resolution agreement meant he avoided any chance of a more severe punishment at CAS. Mudryk, Pogba and Onana are high-profile examples of a recent vintage, but football's ignoble history of doping stretches back many years. Arsenal manager Leslie Knighton admitted he had given his players 'courage pills' for an FA Cup tie with West Ham United in 1925 after visiting a 'distinguished West End doctor'. Knighton, who says he took one before his players, wrote in his autobiography that 'there was something in those pills, I felt I could push down a wall with my fist'. Other clubs have operated under a swirl of speculation. Former Marseille midfielder Jean-Jacques Eydelie wrote in his autobiography of the 'suspicious injections' given to players in their halcyon period of the early 1990s, an assertion backed up by his team-mate Chris Waddle in an interview with The Sun in 2003. 'Players were injected all the time at Marseille,' Waddle said. '(They) said the injections would help our recovery after games. I had a couple of injections, but they didn't make any difference. I don't know what it was, but no one ever failed drug tests and nothing illegal showed up.' Another Marseille player, Tony Cascarino, also said he had received injections, telling The Times in 2003: 'Whatever the substance was, my performances improved. I cling to the sliver of hope that it was legal, though I'm 99 per cent sure it wasn't.' In 2006, the French Football Federation and the Ligue de Football Professionnel issued a statement saying UEFA had checked anti-doping tests conducted after the 1993 final and found nothing adverse. The Marseille president Bernard Tapie, who died in 2021, also denied Eydelie's claims. The 1996 Champions League final was another shrouded in doping controversy. Juventus squeezed past Ajax on penalties, but the Italian club subsequently faced an investigation into the use of EPO between 1994 and 1998. Club chairman Antonio Giraudo, who denied the charges, was acquitted at a trial in Turin in 2004 but club doctor Riccardo Agricola was given a 22-month prison sentence for supplying banned substances, including EPO. He eventually got the conviction quashed on appeal but Milan's win still rankles for Ajax. Advertisement Italian football, by that point, was facing other problems. Edgar Davids and Jaap Stam, then of Juventus and Lazio respectively, were both initially banned for five months after tests discovered elevated levels of the prohibited steroid nandrolone in 2001, with both being reduced to four months on appeal. Frank de Boer was hit with a one-year suspension for the same positive results in June 2001, but that punishment was reduced to just over two months on appeal. All protested their innocence. And then there was Pep Guardiola, now Manchester City manager, who failed two drug tests when a midfielder with Brescia in 2001. Traces of nandrolone, the anabolic steroid that can increase strength and speed, were detected and Guardiola was banned for four months. An eight-year legal battle followed, with it eventually accepted that Guardiola's two samples had been 'unstable' during storage. Exoneration only came when Guardiola — who always denied any wrongdoing — had taken up a position coaching at Barcelona. The controversies dented Italy's reputation, with some players who faced Italian clubs still finding it hard to move on. In February 2024, former Manchester United players Gary Neville and Roy Keane discussed their suspicions around some of the teams they faced in Champions League ties, especially those from Italy, on the Stick to Football podcast. 'We thought at the time there were things that physically (were not correct),' Neville said. 'We were fit, we weren't drinkers. I came off the pitch against an Italian team and thought: 'That's not right'. I know that a couple of the other lads in the mid-2000s thought exactly the same thing.' Keane added. 'When we played certain teams, I would be walking off and you were absolutely shattered. I would be looking at the players I played against, a couple of the Italian teams, and they looked like they'd not even played a match.' The motivation to dope has always been there, albeit more for the individual than the team. 'While there is still no consensus on whether the ergogenic effects of so-called performance-enhancing drugs directly impact sports performance, footballers may benefit from certain drugs given the physiological demands of the game, alongside increasingly congested competition schedules,' says Professor Susan Backhouse, who leads the sporting integrity research team at Leeds Beckett University. Advertisement 'For example, anabolic agents may improve explosive actions, such as sprinting and change of direction, and stimulants, such as ephedrine, may improve footballers' energy levels.' Wenger's comments at the beginning of this article would suggest football has too often looked in the other direction. It is not an endurance sport such as cycling or long-distance running, and it is not a sport heavily reliant on strength, such as rugby or weightlifting. In a team game predominantly shaped by skill, technique and coaching, is there enough to gain? 'If you're a footballer and you can increase your speed, your explosive power, your endurance, that's going to make a big difference to your overall performance,' says Professor Adam Nicholls, leader of sport psychology and coaching group at the University of Hull, who has worked extensively on doping. 'It's still a highly aerobic sport with lots of sprints. Fitness is still a major requirement.' Dr John William Devine, the senior lecturer in ethics at Swansea University's sports science department, agrees. 'It's not true that because football is a skill-based sport that doping wouldn't help. It is true that doping cannot help you with the kind of more advanced skills involved in being a top-flight footballer, but they can help you to be stronger and faster and recover better.' If there is a thread that links all of football's high-profile positive cases, it is the protestations of innocence that follow. Onana said he had mistakenly taken his wife's medication, believing it to be aspirin, while Pogba argued it was the fault of a nutritional supplement given to him by his doctor. Mudryk also claimed ignorance as to how he had failed his test. The strict liability principle adopted by football and other sports presents no way around a suspension in the majority of cases, but it does allow scope for bans to be reduced. Pogba and Onana both took their initial suspensions to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and successfully had their bans trimmed. Advertisement Hull City's Ecuadorean midfielder Oscar Zambrano, the other player contracted to an English club banned for a positive drugs test last season, was initially sidelined for 16 months in October by CONMEBOL, the governing body of South American football, but an appeal with CAS has seen that reduced to 12 months. Zambrano will be available to play again from November. 'The reason that the World Anti-Doping Code operates with a strict liability principle is that proving intent is one of the most difficult things to establish in doping,' explains Dr Devine. 'The strict liability principle allows sports governing bodies to pursue cases without having to prove intent. 'Sport operates with a soft strict liability approach, in the sense that intent does not feature as an element of the offence, but intent is taken into account at the point of determining sanctions. 'The difficulty, in a way, is that it's not necessarily the case that you've cheated if you've doped. If we say that cheating is intentionally breaking the rules, the strict liability approach means you can break the rules without intending to do so. You can inadvertently dope.' Clubs stress the need for all medications to be checked by staff before they are taken, while supplements pose their own dangers. 'It was made crystal clear to the players at the very start of every season that it was their responsibility,' says Renshaw. 'It's what they're given when away on international duty where you might get problems. A lot of the players do see their own people for nutrition and guidance. That is an absolute minefield if people aren't always fully aware of the regulations. 'The nature of the game now, with so many different nationalities at any one club, the level of care and attention can vary greatly. It's not easy to communicate with the staff sometimes. We've always got to stay on top of that, but there's a presumptive part of it, where a player will presume what they're given is OK.' Advertisement There is often a level of sympathy afforded to players from within the game. Bans remain in place but are often reduced from what they might have been. The modern outlier to that is Mario Vuskovic, the Croatian under-21 international who plays for German side Hamburg. He tested positive for EPO after a training session in 2022 and was handed a two-year ban by the German FA. A one-year suspension in return for admitting guilt was rejected and Vuskovic's case, like so many, was then taken to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, who increased Vuskovic's ban to four years. A final appeal to the Swiss Federal Court in February also failed. Unavailable until November 2026 — until then, he must train by himself — Vuskovic's Hamburg contract was torn up by mutual consent, but he remains fiercely popular among fans of a club that won promotion back to the Bundesliga in May. Vuskovic's ongoing insistence on his innocence, citing a 'laboratory error in testing', is widely accepted by supporters, while his team-mates posed with a 'Free Mario' banner after a match in May 2024. 'I am innocent,' he told 11freunde. 'And everyone knows it. That's the crazy thing.' His club, too, have behaved sympathetically. He may no longer have a contract with Hamburg, but there is a future agreement which can kick in once his ban expires. A possible off-field role for Vuskovic has also been discussed, but Hamburg are yet to comment publicly on that. Football's quiet fight against doping will continue, long after Mudryk's case is heard. The question, though, goes back to Wenger and that appetite to combat the threat once and for all. Some remain unconvinced. 'All sports are the same, they don't want the scrutiny,' says Professor Nicholls. 'It can bring negativity to the game. I'm sure there are people within these organisations who want to catch the cheats, but for an overall governing body, it's not really in their interests.' (Top photo design: Kelsea Petersen/The Athletic)
New York Times
a day ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Mykhailo Mudryk's doping charge explained: Can Chelsea sack him if found guilty and could he appeal?
After provisionally suspending Mykhailo Mudryk in December for a failed drugs test, the English Football Association (FA) has now charged the Chelsea winger for violating its anti-doping regulations. This means Mudryk, who has not played a competitive game of football since the end of November, could now face a maximum penalty of a four-year suspension. Advertisement Although the 24-year-old was in Wroclaw, Poland, to watch Chelsea lift the UEFA Conference League on May 28, he is not with the squad for their ongoing involvement in the FIFA Club World Cup, which is taking place in the United States. In statement released on Wednesday afternoon, the FA said: 'We can confirm that Mykhailo Mudryk has been charged with anti-doping rule violations alleging the presence and/or use of a prohibited substance, in terms of regulations 3 and 4 of The FA's Anti-Doping Regulations. As this is an ongoing case, we are not in a position to comment further at this time.' As per the FA's anti-doping regulations, Mudryk now has 20 days to decide whether to accept the finding and whatever punishments follow, or request a hearing with the FA. Although a four-year ban would be the worst-case scenario for Mudryk, a possible suspension could range anywhere from two years to a month, depending on any mitigating factors. Here, we explain the background to his case — some of which appeared in an article previously published in December — and what happens now. In December, it emerged that a routine drugs test found Mudryk to have — in Chelsea's words — 'an adverse finding' in a urine sample provided by the player. This immediately led to a provisional suspension from Chelsea's first team as they awaited the results of further testing. When urine samples are collected, they are put into two separate containers. The A sample is used for the initial test, and if that comes back positive, they then test the B sample to verify the accuracy of the first result. So, following Mudryk's positive A sample, his B sample was then tested, which verified that he had tested positive for meldonium, a banned substance. The Athletic previously reported that Mudryk returned the positive test for meldonium after being away on international duty in November during a period that saw him feature in Ukraine's Nations League fixtures against Georgia and Albania. Before his positive test became public knowledge, Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca was asked about Mudryk's absence and simply said he is 'out', or that he was ill, without giving any further reason. Advertisement Neither Mudryk or Chelsea have spoken publicly since the FA announced its decision to charge him on Wednesday. In December, the club issued a statement saying that Mudryk 'has confirmed categorically that he has never knowingly used any banned substances'. In the same statement, the player said: 'This has come as a complete shock as I have never knowingly used any banned substances or broken any rules, and am working closely with my team to investigate how this could have happened.' If the charge is upheld, the player's options would be limited. 'If a ban is imposed, he will have the option to try to reduce the length of the ban by appealing the sanction,' says Dan Chapman, a partner and head of employment and sports law at Leathes Prior. Chapman notes that any appeal by Mudryk would be to the FA, though his legal team may also explore whether they can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), which is where Paul Pogba had his four-year ban reduced to 18 months. Chapman says that the 'domestic process is reasonably speedy', both in terms of possible sanctions and any appeal. 'Appeals to the European system are complex, even if available, and will take some while,' he adds. 'The thing with Pogba was that he was of an age where the sanction was career-ending and challenging the ban was his only play. If Mudryk feels that he no realistic prospect of overturning any ban, the situation could change. 'Depending on how long the ban is for,' Chapman continues, 'the advice might be that once the FA process has been concluded, he will need to accept the outcome and that he will still have plenty of time to play after the ban ends.' If the FA finds against Mudryk then, unlike the player, Chelsea would have several options. In the standard Premier League contracts that are in place between all players and clubs, there is a definition of gross misconduct, and being found to have taken a prohibited substance falls under the definition, as it does in accordance with FA rules. Advertisement 'The club, on the face of it, would have a relatively open-and-shut case to say the player is guilty of gross misconduct and, if they wanted to, they could terminate the player's contract,' Chapman says. 'They would need to give 14 days' notice to the player in writing if that is what they wanted to do. 'There is an appeal process available to the player, and we are not talking about an appeal against the drugs finding, but an appeal against the decision of the club to terminate his contract for gross misconduct. 'The player can follow that process, although it is hard to see how any appeal could realistically be successful, if the FA allegations have been upheld.' When Mudryk joined Chelsea in January 2023, he signed an eight-and-a-half-year contract, the last year of which is optional, meaning he could be tied to the club for another six years. But Mudryk would not have the remainder of his contract paid out if he is sacked for gross misconduct. Chelsea would only need to pay him for the 14 days. Another option open to Chelsea, Chapman explains, is that they may decide to keep Mudryk, given his age, potential and remaining contract length. In this scenario, the Premier League side may seek to renegotiate the Ukrainian's contract and put him on a significantly lower wage while he serves the ban. It would still be up to Mudryk, however, to sign a new deal on reduced terms. He may instead fancy his chances as a free agent if the alternative to that is being sacked by the club. If Chelsea opt to sack Mudryk, then Chapman says they could in theory also sue him for damages, which is what they successfully did when they sacked Adrian Mutu in 2004 after he tested positive for cocaine and was handed a seven-month ban. 'That is a very rare step, but that is an option open to them,' adds Chapman. 'They would argue they bought an asset for £80million, he breached the contract, and now the asset is worth virtually nothing. Advertisement 'Not many clubs would ever want to do that because the message you are sending future players is that if you sign for us and things go wrong, then we may sue you. This doesn't tend to happen, but it can. The signs so far, and who knows whether this is a justified position not being privy to the facts, is that Chelsea are being fully supportive of their player.' A prohibited substance, in short. Meldonium is a heart disease drug developed in 1970 in the former Soviet Union. It is designed to combat ischemia, a condition where blood flow is restricted to body tissue, muscles or organs. It boosts metabolism and increases blood flow and, by extension, the exercise capacity of athletes. It was added to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)'s list of banned substances in January 2016 after its previous inclusion in the agency's monitoring programme the year before. Former Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova had been the most high-profile case of an athlete being banned for using meldonium. A failed drugs test at the 2016 Australian Open led to a two-year ban issued by the International Tennis Federation, with Sharapova accepting she had made 'a huge mistake' in taking the substance. Sharapova told a news conference in Los Angeles she had been given a medicine for 10 years by her family doctor and had been unaware that it had also been known as meldonium, which had been added to WADA's prohibited list in the weeks before her failed test. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reduced Sharapova's ban to 15 months in October 2016 after finding that she did not deliberately cheat and that there was no 'significant fault or negligence on her part'. The use of meldonium was not uncommon by Eastern European athletes before its ban, but it was the subject of a doping scandal in 2016 when the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia replaced its under-18s squad with an under-17s team at the World Under-18s Championships due to several players returning positive test results. Philip Buckingham Adverse findings are few and far between and, most commonly, have been due to traces of recreational drugs being discovered. Mutu, goalkeeper Mark Bosnich and one-time England midfielder Jake Livermore were all given suspensions by the FA for testing positive for traces of cocaine, as was the Cardiff winger Nathaniel Mendez-Laing more recently, in 2020. Advertisement Further afield, the use of performance-enhancing drugs is rare but not without precedent. In February, Pogba was banned for four years when found to have taken a doping agent while at Juventus, a suspension that was later reduced to 18 months when an appeal to CAS found the consumption of the drug had not been intentional. He is still without a club. In February 2021, Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana, then playing for Ajax, was banned for a year by UEFA after testing positive for furosemide, a diuretic. That was reduced to nine months by CAS after the court accepted Onana's explanation that he had confused the medication — which he said belonged to his wife — with aspirin. On November 4, Oscar Zambrano, the Hull City midfielder, was also given a lengthy ban. Zambrano had returned a positive test last season when playing for his Ecuadorian parent club LDU Quito but had remained eligible to feature until CONMEBOL issued a ban for breaching anti-doping rules. Hull, who had only signed the player on loan, said Zambrano intended to appeal through CAS but the case is not yet listed. Philip Buckingham Doping bans ordinarily fall between two and four years, although appeals can reduce the length of those bans, as was seen in the case of Pogba. 'If we look at what happened with Paul Pogba, his violation and the consequences that followed, that was a lengthy ban,' says Jibreel Tramboo, a sports lawyer at Church Court Chambers. 'I understand the circumstances are different but the point still follows. 'Anti-doping regulations are a strict liability offence. Athletes are fully responsible for substances found in their bodies. It's irrelevant if it's accidental or intentional. If it's there, it's a breach. You could argue a reduced sanction if he can demonstrate no significant fault or negligence in what he's taken but there is arguably no defence.' Philip Buckingham
BreakingNews.ie
a day ago
- Sport
- BreakingNews.ie
Thursday's briefing: Mudryk charged and Real held on Alexander-Arnold debut
Chelsea's Mykhailo Mudryk has been charged by the Football Association over an alleged breach of anti-doping regulations. Trent Alexander-Arnold's Real Madrid debut ended in frustration at the Club World Cup, but Manchester City's Rico Lewis endured an even more disappointing night as he was sent off. Advertisement England edged their way into the European Under-21 Championship quarter-finals despite defeat by Germany. Mudryk charged Chelsea winger Mykhailo Mudryk has been charged by the Football Association with violating anti-doping rules (Zac Goodwin/PA) Chelsea winger Mykhailo Mudryk has been charged by the Football Association with violating anti-doping rules. The 24-year-old, an £88.5million (€103 million) signing from Shakhtar Donetsk in January 2023, has not played since being handed a provisional suspension in December after he returned a positive test, reportedly for the banned substance meldonium. An FA statement said: 'We can confirm that Mykhailo Mudryk has been charged with anti-doping rule violations alleging the presence and/or use of a prohibited substance, in terms of regulations three and four of the FA's anti-doping regulations.' Advertisement Rico sees red Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola leapt to Rico Lewis' defence after he was sent off at the Club World Cup (Peter Byrne/PA) Pep Guardiola leapt to the defence of Rico Lewis after the Manchester City defender's 'unnecessary' sending-off in their Club World Cup opener. Lewis was dismissed by Brazilian referee Ramon Abatti after catching Samuel Obeng in the face following a sliding challenge two minutes from the end of a 2-0 victory over Wydad Casablanca. City boss Guardiola said: 'He touched the ball. For the speed they go to touch the ball – for the Newton's theory your leg has to be a little bit higher and the other player was down. 'Rico had no intention. It was unnecessary, honestly, the red card, but the referee had a different opinion and he's the boss.' Advertisement Madrid pay the penalty Trent Alexander-Arnold made his Real Madrid debut in the 1-1 Club World Cup draw with Al Hilal (Lynne Sladky/AP/PA) Debutants Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dean Huijsen suffered a frustrating evening in Miami as Real Madrid were held to a 1-1 Club World Cup draw by Saudi side Al Hilal. Madrid boss Xabi Alonso and opposite number Simone Inzaghi were both taking charge of their new clubs for the first time. Gonzalo Garcia fired the Spanish giants into a 34th-minute lead but Ruben Neves levelled from the penalty spot before the break. Alonso's men had the better of the second half, but could not find a way past stubborn opponents as Federico Valverde's stoppage-time penalty was saved. Advertisement Reigning champions limp into last eight A narrow defeat in Nitra for our #YoungLions , who still progress to the #U21EURO knockout stage. Our match report ⤵️ — England (@England) June 18, 2025 England will play Spain in the quarter-finals of the European Under-21 Championship after they were beaten 2-1 by Germany in their final group game in Slovakia to finish runners-up in Group B. Lee Carsley's side needed a victory in Nitra to go through to the knockout rounds in first place, but despite already-qualified Germany making 11 changes, the reigning champions struggled to impose themselves. Goals from Ansgar Knauff and Nelson Weiper sent the 2023 winners to defeat and left them to face pre-tournament favourites Spain – who they beat in the final two years ago – in Trnava on Saturday. Bournemouth's Alex Scott tapped home 15 minutes from time from Omari Hutchinson's cross to make it 2-1, with Slovenia's defeat by the Czech Republic enough to secure England's passage. Advertisement What's on today? Lionel Messi's Inter Miami return to Club World Cup action on Thursday (Rebecca Blackwell/AP/PA) The Club World Cup is the focus once again as Lionel Messi's Inter Miami look to register their first win of the competition when they take on Porto in Atlanta, having drawn their opening fixture against Al Ahly 0-0. The Egyptian side are also in action again, this time against Palmeiras.
Reuters
27-05-2025
- General
- Reuters
Griekspoor finds friendship during awkward waits in anti-doping process
PARIS, May 27 (Reuters) - Dutch tennis player Tallon Griekspoor said he had formed an unexpected bond in the awkward moments of the sport's anti-doping process after striking a friendship with an official while waiting for the urge to pee into sample containers. Anti-doping protocols in tennis are based on the World Anti-Doping Agency code and its whereabouts rules require players to designate a 60-minute slot for each day they will be available to provide blood or urine samples to officials. The unglamorous process can take place at tournaments or out-of-competition in training venues, tournament hotels or even an athlete's home, with three missed tests in a 12-month period grounds for a doping violation. World number 35 Griekspoor said at the French Open that he found some positives in the burdensome process when his bladder failed to cooperate quickly. "A couple of times I peed and 30 minutes later the guy rings the doorbell and he's sitting on my couch for three hours. I'm not the best pee-er when somebody's watching," the 28-year-old told reporters. "At the same time it is what it is. I'm not the best in keeping the location up to date. Sometimes it's a struggle but overall it's fine. You get to know these people. "The guy who comes to my home is a pretty nice guy. I have fun chats with him sometimes." Griekspoor's comments come as tennis finds itself under the spotlight over high-profile doping violations involving Italian Jannik Sinner and Poland's Iga Swiatek, with both players back on the circuit after serving short bans. While vigilance remains the watchword, some players still complain about the inconvenience of the system, with four-times Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka saying she recently provided a blood sample at 5:00 a.m., a time she had allotted. The International Tennis Integrity Agency, which runs the sport's anti-doping programme, said it was committed to helping players navigate any issues. "We recognise that anti-doping testing can be challenging and uncomfortable for players, however it is vital that there is a robust programme in place to protect the sport," the body told Reuters via email. "This includes out of competition testing, as well as testing at events. We are here to help and support players and urge them to contact us if they have questions about testing or need help with the whereabouts process." Russia's former world number one Daniil Medvedev said the system sometimes disrupted carefully calibrated routines and led to missed tests. "It's a hassle, because I myself ... had two missed tests," Medvedev added. "It's actually very tricky. People think, 'Oh, how can he miss it? Try travelling 25 countries a year. Try not to forget one date that you're not in Monaco but in Paris already and change it. "It's not easy, but it is what it is."
Daily Mail
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Tennis star Naomi Osaka opens up on 'scary' 5am drug test wake-up call just days before beginning her French Open campaign
Former world number one Naomi Osaka revealed she endured a 'scary' 5am wake-up call to be drug tested on Saturday. The Japanese star, who plays Paula Badosa in the first round of the French Open on Monday, was targeted by anti-doping control at the crack of dawn in Paris. The testers, she said, often struggle to find her veins as they attempt to take a blood sample, sometimes leaving her arms bruised. 'I honestly don't know the rules about talking about anti-doping,' said the 27-year-old. 'Am I allowed to say whatever I want? 'I don't know. They're kind of scary. Yeah, for me, anti-doping is like - I don't have a great relationship with them, just because they always come and take blood and urine, which I don't know if that disgusts people to say, but whatever, and my veins are, like, very notoriously hard to find. 'One person once told me it was like a Japanese thing. I don't know if that's accurate. Yeah, so they come at 5am and 'stick' me multiple times. 'Usually they can't find my veins, so they have three attempts to find it. Sometimes they can't find it. 'They're like, "oops, sorry, let me try this arm, let me try this arm, let me try this arm". I always have to tell them "hey, my playing arm is my right arm, I prefer the left, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah". 'And today was kind of scary, because the last year I was here they also came at 5:00am, and the lady couldn't find my veins at all. 'I had huge bruises on my arms for a while. Thankfully it wasn't the same lady. No shade to her. And yeah, today was a success because luckily I had to use the bathroom when they woke me up, so...' Britain's Emma Raducanu admitted she has undergone similar unpleasant experiences. 'Sometimes it feels like pin the donkey, because at 6am you're not very hydrated and everything,' she said. 'It's like you can't get any blood out, and they have however many attempts. That's a bit difficult, but I think we all have to go through it.
