“Finally the nightmare is over,” Paul Pogba declared on Friday evening, grateful and relieved to see a shaft of light at the end of the dark tunnel in which he has felt trapped for so long.
Seven months after being hit with a four-year ban for a doping violation, Pogba learned from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that he had succeeded, partially, with an appeal. His ban has been reduced to 18 months, which raises the prospect of a return to action in March 2025.
But where? It is a long way back to the stages he once graced as the most expensive player in world football — and right now there seems little prospect of reintegration at Juventus, whose coach Thiago Motta could hardly have sounded less interested on Saturday in facilitating a Pogba redemption story.
Juventus were expected to terminate the France midfielder’s contract if the original four-year ban was upheld by CAS. Friday’s verdict leaves Juventus waiting for CAS to publish the reasons for their decision, possibly as soon as Monday. Talks with Pogba and his agent Rafaela Pimenta will follow, but a reconciliation is unlikely to be top of the Italian club’s agenda.
Pogba is said to have been euphoric when the appeal verdict came through on Friday, though. Not only could he start to think about the comeback trail, but CAS had accepted the explanation offered by the player and his legal team: that rather than being a “drugs cheat” he had, in good faith, taken a dietary supplement that, unknown to him, contained the banned substance Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA).
His appeal was led by sports lawyer Mike Morgan, who has successfully represented former world heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury and six-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome in doping cases.
Pogba’s name has not been cleared; he acknowledged in Friday’s statement that he had been guilty of a “strict liability offence”. But what has been cleared, at least to some extent, is a comeback trail.
Pogba playing for Juve against Empoli in September 2023 (Giuseppe Maffia/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
To have been suspended beyond his 34th birthday, in March 2027, could effectively have ended his career. The prospect of returning to the training pitch in January and being available to play again from March 11 — wherever that might be — changes the picture considerably.
“This has been a hugely distressing period in my life because everything I have worked so hard for has been put on hold,” Pogba said in Friday’s statement.
It is still on hold. But it is no longer at a complete stop.
At a news conference to preview his team’s game against Cagliari, Juventus coach Motta responded to questions about Pogba by saying the club would evaluate what to do.
A little pointedly, it seemed, he added that the midfielder “has been a great player” — has been — but one who “hasn’t played for a long time”.
Pogba’s last competitive appearance was nearly 17 months ago. Since rejoining Juventus amid great fanfare in the summer of 2022, on a deal that was initially worth €500,000 per week (£420,000, $550,000), he has started just one match due to a) persistent injury problems, b) a struggle to regain fitness and form and c) the ban that began, initially on a provisional basis, in September 2023.
But the “nightmare” Pogba spoke about has been going on for years, dating back to his unhappy time at Manchester United.
Pogba and Lilian Thuram watch France in Dusseldorf at Euro 2024 (Image Photo Agency/Getty Images)
At his appeal hearing in Lausanne on August 30, he told CAS it was a desperation to put his injury troubles behind him that led him, in good faith, to take a dietary supplement that contained DHEA.
His defence centred on a trip to the United States in November 2022 — during the World Cup in Qatar, which he missed with a knee injury.
During that trip, he visited a wellness clinic in the hope of finding out why he was suffering so many injuries and what kind of action he might be able to take in order to prevent them in future.
A series of blood and biometric tests raised various issues, including a lack of vitamin D. Pogba says the doctor at the clinic, who claimed to have worked with numerous athletes in American sport, prescribed a course of tablets to address his vitamin D deficiency.
Pogba thought little more of it until August 2023, when Italy’s National Anti-Doping Organisation (NADO) selected him for a drugs test after Juventus’s opening game of the Serie A campaign away to Udinese, for which he was an unused substitute.
His test came back positive, as did a “B” sample, with NADO declaring that his sample contained “non-endogenous testosterone metabolites” and that the results were “consistent with the exogenous origin of the target compounds”.
He was immediately given a provisional ban, which was extended by NADO to four years last February.
From the very start, Pogba told Juventus he had taken nutritional supplements without knowing they put him at risk of a doping violation. He admitted he had been wrong to do so without the club’s knowledge and permission.
His contention at both the original NADO hearing and the appeal to CAS was that he never sought a performance-enhancing advantage. His legal team argued that, while studies have shown DHEA to offer potential performance-enhancing benefits to female athletes, there was little evidence of any such benefit for men.
Sympathy among the Juventus hierarchy was in understandably short supply. There was already dissatisfaction at his struggle to recover match fitness in his first season. To take nutritional supplements without the club’s knowledge was considered irresponsible in the extreme.
The option of terminating his contract immediately was discussed, but was not possible while he was awaiting the outcome of his appeal to CAS. Instead, he was required to train away from the club’s facilities with his salary reduced to €2,000 a month under the terms of an agreement between Italian clubs and the Italian professional footballers’ union (AIC).
Pogba watches Juventus take on Empoli in September 2023 (Giuseppe Maffia/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The next step is unclear, but there has been little to suggest Juventus are eager to welcome him back to the fold, let alone on full pay. At the start of this season his No 10 shirt was awarded to 19-year-old Turkish international Kenan Yildiz.
Various alternative destinations have been proposed in reports, including Major League Soccer as well as the Saudi Pro League, but sources close to Pogba, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, said over the weekend it was far too early to predict anything beyond the need for clarification of Juventus’s plans.
GO DEEPER
Paul Pogba: Is this the end?
As positive as Friday’s verdict undoubtedly was, it appears a long way back to the type of status Pogba enjoyed as one of the world’s most talented and celebrated footballers.
Through his six years at United, there was often a considerable difference between Pogba’s enormous talent and his output — and certainly between his output and his global reputation — but, at his best, he is (or, to use Motta’s words, has been) a wonderful player.
On Saturday he posted an Instagram story showing some of his greatest moments with Juventus, United and the France national team during their World Cup-winning campaign in 2018.
It was quite the showreel, a reminder of a talent that has flickered only sporadically in recent years — and over the past three seasons, dating back to his miserable final year in Manchester, barely even that.
In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro in 2022, Pogba said he had felt depressed during different spells at United. “Of course we earn a lot of money and we don’t really complain, but that does not prevent you from going through these moments in your life — like the whole world — which are more difficult than others,” he said. “In football it is not acceptable.
“But we are not superheroes. We are only human beings.”
Pogba’s personal difficulties deepened in 2022 when he was the subject of an alleged extortion plot that led to the arrest of five people, including his brother Matthias, who was subsequently released.
In an interview with Al Jazeera recorded before news had emerged of the positive test, Pogba said “Money changes people. It can break up a family. It can create a war. Sometimes I was just by myself thinking, ‘I don’t want to have money anymore. I just don’t want to play anymore.’”
Such feelings of resignation might have come more easily when the option of playing wasn’t there — and when the prospect of a comeback seemed so remote.
But whether it is at Juventus or more likely elsewhere, Pogba can see a way back now. He has felt energised not just by the CAS verdict but by the support he has received both publicly and privately.
The response from Kylian Mbappe and others on Pogba’s Instagram page on Friday was testament to the midfielder’s enduring popularity within the game — particularly within the France national team setup.
France fans make their feelings clear at Euro 2024 (Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)
There was also a warm reception when he arrived at the Allianz Arena on Sunday afternoon to watch Juventus in their 1-1 draw with Cagliari. He posted a picture on Instagram of an embrace with his former team-mate Giorgio Chiellini, thanking the 40-year-old for his support.
Pogba has the type of personality that will always inspire affection and goodwill. At his best, his infectious, enthusiastic nature was part of what made him such a captivating player.
He will hope, after Friday’s verdict, he can become so again. There are still so many things to resolve; if there is no way back at Juventus, where does his future lie? But there is light at the end of the tunnel at last.
(Top photo: Andrea Staccioli/Insidefoto/LightRocket via Getty Images))
