Chelsea winger Mykhailo Mudryk has been handed the maximum punishment of a four-year ban from the Football Association for anti-doping violations – and is now appealing with the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The 25-year-old Ukrainian logged his appeal against the FA on February 25. It is understood a hearing has yet to be scheduled.
Mudryk has not appeared for Chelsea since November 28, 2024 in a Conference League win over Heidenheim in which he scored prior to his provisional suspension.
Chelsea signed the attacker for £88million from Shakhtar Donetsk in 2023, and he is under contract until 2030 with a club option to extend for a further year.
In a statement confirming Mudryk’s ban on Wednesday, a CAS spokesperson said that they could ‘confirm that he is appealing against the imposed period of ineligibility of four years’.
Both Chelsea and Mudryk’s representatives were contacted for comment by Daily Mail Sport, as were the FA.
Mykhailo Mudryk is facing four years of a ban from football – but will appeal to CAS
Mudryk has long maintained his innocence and has continued to train individually in the hope of returning. That has included renting the pitch of non-League club Uxbridge.
It is understood, according to historical precedents, that the Ukrainian’s four-year ban would include time already served in exile. Therefore, Mudryk’s suspension from football is likely to take him up until Christmas 2028.
Daily Mail Sport reported in December 2024 that the banned substance meldonium was believed to be behind Mudryk’s failed drug test.
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The substance is the same drug that former Russian tennis star and multiple Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova previously used and a positive test resulted in her being banned for two years in 2016.
Sharapova had previously failed a drugs test at the Australian Open for using meldonium which is sold under the brand Mildronate and is a banned performance enhancing drug.
However, the Latvian scientist who invented the drug – Ivar Kalvins – has outlined that the drug was never to be used by athletes and was instead designed for ‘Soviet super soldiers’.
‘If the soldiers are to operate in the mountains, there’s a lack of oxygen. The way to protect against damage is by using Mildronate,’ he once told WIRED.
Tons of the substance were previously exported to the Russian army with the scientist also revealing that there were ‘very many who used it’.
Mudryk’s initial absence of five games in 2024 was explained as illness by the Stamford Bridge club, who later confirmed that ‘an adverse finding in a routine urine test’ was notified to them by the FA.
More to follow.
