Pogba doping case: ‘Testosterone obsolete in football’

Paul Pogba has been provisionally suspended after failing a doping test for elevated levels of testosterone, so a medic explains why it is unlikely to be caused by a performance-enhancing drug.

The blood tests were taken after the 3-0 Serie A victory away to Udinese on August 20, although he did not play in that game, remaining on the bench throughout.

It remains to be seen how much the levels of testosterone were over the limits and what the B Sample analysis will say.

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La Gazzetta dello Sport contacted Doctor Giuseppe Musumeci, director of cardiology at the Mauriziano Hospital in Turin, to ask about why a football player would try to increase his levels of testosterone.

“That is a difficult question to answer, because it could have been present in medication taken that led to an accidental contamination. Generally speaking, it is a hormone that does very little to improve the physical performance in this sport. It might help to create muscular mass, but it is not really a doping substance that can modify performance by much.”

While testosterone is known to be a performance-enhancing drug used often in bodybuilding or weight-lifting, it is not generally found in football circles.

“Testosterone in sport is a fairly obsolete substance when it comes to use in sport. It was used a very long time ago, primarily by bodybuilders to increase the muscular mass, but has very much fallen out of fashion,” added Doctor Musumeci.

The last time a Serie A player failed a doping test was Atalanta defender Jose Luis Palomino, who was eventually cleared of taking Clostebol, as it was judged to be accidental contamination, but took almost four months to reach a verdict.