‘If they gave me 4 years, I would have quit football’ – Paul Pogba on doping ban | OneFootball

In August 2023, Paul Pogba’s world was turned upside down. After Juventus’ opening Serie A match against Udinese, the French international tested positive for dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), a banned steroid hormone. The 31-year-old midfielder was provisionally suspended pending a hearing before the Italian anti-doping tribunal. The Frenchman recently spoke in an interview with GQ France on the matter.“If they’d given me four years, I would have quit football,” Pogba admitted. “I didn’t want to say it publicly, but that’s what I was thinking.” The Frenchman then left Italy for Dubai in 2024, when the news of his four-year ban came. “I didn’t understand. Why? They handed down the maximum sentence. That meant they hadn’t listened to a single thing I’d said.”Pogba’s defence was that the banned substance had been ingested unknowingly through a supplement prescribed by a doctor he trusted. The doctor in question was Gary Brecka, a self-proclaimed ‘human biologist, biohacker and longevity expert,’ with over two million followers on Instagram and a client list that, he claims, includes Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham, P. Diddy, and Kendall Jenner. Through his company, 10X Health System, Brecka had given Pogba a supplement that unknowingly contained DHEA.Though his explanation was initially rejected by Italian authorities, Pogba fought back. And on October 4, 2024, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) finally ruled in his favour. “Everything that happened changed me,” he says. “I saw what real life is. It worked on me like a full reset. I aged ten years in one go.”The Frenchman has been eligible to play again after the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced a four-year doping ban to 18 months on appeal. Though currently without a club, the midfielder confirmed he’s received offers “from all over,” but is taking time to choose his next move carefully.One of the clubs interested in his signature in the winter was Olympique de Marseille, who may wait until the summer to make a move for the midfielder – after initial conversations took place with the OM leadership.GFFN | George Boxall