New Telegraph Admin 
Paul Pogba has started just one game since rejoining Juventus in the summer of 2022. There is now a very real chance that he will never play for the club again, after elevated levels of testosterone were found in a random drugs test taken after the Bianconeri’s Serie A clash with Udinese on August 20.
Pogba has been provisionally suspended by the Italian anti-doping tribunal (NADO Italia) and his agent, Rafaela Pimenta, says they are now awaiting the “counter-analysis” to see if the B sample confirms the presence of the banned substance in the Frenchman’s system.
“Until then, we can’t say anything,” Pimenta said. “The certain thing is that Paul never wanted to break the rules.” If found guilty of doping, Pogba could be banned from football from anywhere between two to four years, meaning his top-flight career is very much in the balance right now.
What is already beyond dispute, though, is that this failed doping test represents another devastating setback for a player that has suffered one trauma after another since returning to Turin last year…
The incessant injury issues
“Paul is back in Turin. He left as a boy and returns as a man and a champion, but there is one thing that has not changed – the desire to write unforgettable pages of club history together once more. Pogba is back and we couldn’t be happier.”
That official statement confirming Pogba’s return to Juventus last summer perfectly encapsulated the excitement surrounding the free transfer. And it was understandable, to a degree. Juve had paid nothing to re-sign a player they had sold to Manchester United in 2016 for a then-world record £89 million ($100m). He was still only 29, too.
The hope was that the Bianconeri would at least get a couple more stellar seasons out of Pogba, who had played the best football of his club career during his first stint in Turin. However, there were two major doubts surrounding the deal. Firstly, Pogba was not joining a Juve squad with anything like the same level of quality as the one he had left, and there had long been concerns over his ability to shine without world-class players around him.
Secondly, and far more significantly, Pogba’s recent injury record at Old Trafford could not be construed as anything but troubling. In his final three seasons in Manchester, he had been sidelined with injury on eight separate occasions, and with a variety of ailments.
His final appearance for United had actually come in April of last year, when he limped off in a 4-0 defeat at Liverpool. There was, then, a legitimate question mark over Pogba’s fitness, and it would not take long for us to get an answer.
His brother and attempted blackmail
A month of this ‘conservative’ therapy failed to yield the desired result and, on September 3, 2022 Pogba belatedly underwent surgery on his knee. “The operation went very well, I’m going to recover and come back very, very quickly,” he vowed in a social media post.
“I wanted to thank you all for your messages, for your support. “Know that mentally I’m okay despite all the worries, the injury, and the other problems.” Those other problems were no trifling matter. Indeed, it’s important to note that Pogba’s injury struggles were played out against the backdrop of a devastating familial drama.
On August 28, Pogba’s brother Mathias posted a video online promising “explosive” revelations about the midfielder, and his agent Pimenta. “The French, Italian, English and Spanish public deserve to know certain things,” Mathias Pogba said.
“Basically, the whole world, including my brother’s fans, France, Juventus and his sponsors, they need to have the information and take an informed decision on whether he deserves respect and love from the fans; if he deserves to play for Juventus and a place in the France World Cup squad.
“I want to open the eyes on the so-called most powerful woman in football, who my brother calls his second mum (Pimenta). I think that what I’ll say will concern many people. I’ll say important things about Kylian Mbappe. Many elements and witnesses confirm what I’ll say.
It could be explosive.” Pogba’s legal team immediately confirmed that they were already aware of the claims – which included an allegation that the player had hired a witchdoctor to place a spell on France team-mate Mbappe, of whom he was supposedly jealous – and explained that they were linked to an extortion plot by an organised crime gang.
Pogba had already informed French police that he had been threatened by two hooded men armed with assault rifles in Paris on March 19 of last year and, among other things, had his mobile phone taken away from him, as well as being ordered to pay £11 million ($14m) in owed ‘protection fees’.
Pogba had also gone to the Italian authorities after being subject to further threats and acts of intimidation in Turin. Four people, including Mathias, were eventually arrested on September 14, 2022, though the former forward was released from prison on December 23.
World Cup woe
After Pogba had finally gone under the knife, it was expected that he would be sidelined for eight weeks. However, just after resuming athletic work, Pogba was struck down by a thigh problem just above his weakened right knee on October 19, casting considerable doubt on his availability for the World Cup.
The bad news was finally confirmed by Pimenta on October 31: “Following yesterday and today’s medical review in Torino and Pittsburgh, it is extremely painful to inform Paul will still need recovery time from his surgery. “For this reason, Paul will not be able to join the Juventus squad before the World Cup break nor the French national team in Qatar.
“If wishful thinking would change things, Paul would be playing tomorrow. But what changes things are hard work, resilience and discipline, all of which are the only things in Paul’s mind at these challenging times. “Paul will continue working, giving his very best to be back on the pitch for the fans and his team as soon as possible.”
Yet another setback
During the World Cup, Pogba spent time in Milan working closely with a club physio, undertaking plenty of pool and gym work as part of a personalised rehab programme.
However, when quizzed before Christmas on Pogba’s potential involvement in Juve’s first competitive fixture after the international break, against Cremonese, Allegri admitted that he still didn’t know when the Frenchman would be fit to return.
Pogba eventually rejoined the group on January 10 and subsequently scored twice in an in-house friendly against Juve’s reserve team. On January 28, Allegri revealed in a press conference that Pogba was finally available for selection again, and included the World Cup winner in his squad for the Serie A clash with Monza in Turin the following day.
Pogba spent the entire game on the bench, though, and there were immediate reports that he had suffered yet another setback (a flexor problem) in the warm-up.
Patience running out…
On the surface, Allegri remained supportive. “It takes a while to get back in shape,” the Bianconeri boss said on February 2 of this year. “It takes time for Pogba. Nobody can work miracles. His body must adapt. “We must use him wisely and in the right moment when he will be fit.”
However, Allegri had grown visibly ir- ritated by all of the questions and constant speculation surrounding Pogba’s fitness. It had also been claimed in the Italian press that, as far back as October, Juve’s previous board of directors – all of whom had resigned the following month due to an unrelated investigation into the club’s finances – had tried to remove some of the agreed bonuses in Pogba’s contract because of his ongoing Some fans had also grown frustrated with Pogba’s off-field activities during his spell on the sidelines.
There was a perception that he could have been doing more to get himself back on the field of play, particularly after he posted a picture of himself on a ski slope on December 27.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a story emerged in the Italian press after his failure to get off the bench in Monza claiming that Pogba had privately pledged his future to the club; that he wouldn’t consider leaving even if they failed to secure qualification for next season’s Champions League.
It felt like both an attempt to get the fans back onside and, perhaps more importantly, a bid to convince Juve, who have once again been linked with a summer move for Lazio’s Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, that they can still count on him.
However, Pogba featured just six times during the second half of the season – as a substitute on each occasion – after making his return to action at the end of February, against Torino, which led to further speculation of him being sold if a buyer could be found during the summer.
What happens now?
Pogba didn’t even feature in the game af- ter which he failed the anti-doping test, but he did get off the bench in Juve’s following two fixtures, against Bologna and Empoli, which offered hope that he might yet be able to play a meaningful role in the 2023-24 campaign.
Now, though, everything hinges on the B sample. At the time of writing, Juventus have only commented that “the club reserves the right to consider the next procedural steps.” And, according to the Gazzetta dello Sport, confirmation of a failed test would entitle the Bianconeri to suspend Pogba’s pay pending sentencing – or even terminate his contract.
The paper also claims that while the club will not rush into any decisions, they are apparently convinced that their medical team has not erred at all during Pogba’s many injury treatments in Turin. In the event of a positive B sample, then, the focus will instead turn to why elevated levels of testosterone were found in Pogba’s body.
That would be the key to determining the length of any potential ban for Pogba – and whether his trying second spell at Juventus might be brought to the most ignominious of ends.
