11 Biggest Doping Scandals in Football History

Highlights

• Doping in sports dates back to the Ancient Olympics, impacting athletes across various sports and levels of play.
• Football stars like Paul Pogba, Jaap Stam, and Samir Nasri have faced bans for using performance-enhancing substances.
• Some top players have been banned at the very heights of their careers, while others later saw their punishments reduced.

The earliest cases of doping in sport can be traced back (no pun intended) to the Ancient Olympic Games where athletes would reportedly take figs to enhance their performances. While modern medicine is such that athletes don’t have to resort to the vast, calorific consumption of fig rolls, the sporting world has witnessed countless attempts by sportspeople to both deliberately and inadvertently cheat the system in order to ensure an advantage over their competitors. In several cases, we have seen athletes go to extreme measures to conceal their doping via reprehensible means that have jeopardised the integrity of their respective competitions and that have come to the detriment of their health.

While particular sports, such as cycling, boxing, and track events have become more susceptible to a slip of the needle than others, we have witnessed many an instance where footballers have knowingly and unknowingly doped. With some cases proving to be more pre-meditated than others, even those that are deemed less sinister have resulted in serious repercussions, especially in football.

Juventus, and former Manchester United midfielder, Paul Pogba is the latest player found to have been administering performance-enhancing supplements in the form of testosterone after a mandatory drug test. And he will subsequently be banned from the game for four years, as per reports.

But which other players have been wrapped up in similar scandals? Along that line of thinking, GIVEMESPORT has ranked the 11 biggest doping scandals in football history.

Ranking factors:

• Length of ban
• Quality of footballer
• Stage of their career when banned
• Reason for punishment

11 Kolo Toure

Length of ban: 6 months

No, surely not one of the good guys? Kolo Toure’s infectious positive energy and smile can light up a room, making the Ivorian one of the most liked players in Premier League history. The former Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool, and Celtic man enjoyed a truly stellar career, winning numerous major honours, and playing for some of the most decorated clubs in British football, which is enough to make him of one Africa’s finest footballing exports. However, in May 2011 while playing for Manchester City, Toure was found to have tested positive for a banned substance and was consequently banned for six months. The player later admitted to having taken some of his wife’s diet pills.

10 Paolo Guerrero

Length of ban: 14 months

Arguably, one of the more unknown names among the sport’s dopers is Peruvian Paolo Guerrero. The striker, who has featured for the likes of Bayern Munich, Hamburg, and, in more recent times, Brazilian sides such as Flamengo and Internacional, was caught up in a doping storm of his own making in 2018. As the player with the fourth-most caps for his country ever, Guerrero had to wait 14 years after his debut until his nation would qualify for a World Cup, having qualified via the play-offs where they’d go on to beat New Zealand 2-0. The player’s lifelong dream had been realised.

Unfortunately, after a routine drug test returned concerning findings, Guerrero’s World Cup hopes were seemingly over. Traces of cocaine were discovered in the player’s samples, and as such, he was banned for 14 months, meaning he’d miss the tournament. The player’s legal team argued that the failed test was a result of consuming traditional Peruvian tea, and while it was widely accepted the presence of the drug in his system was not intended to enhance performance, the World Anti-Doping Agency upheld the ban. While it looked to all the world as if Guerrero would miss out on his country’s first appearance at a World Cup in 32 years, the veteran forward would get a second chance when the ban was temporarily lifted, so he was eligible to play.

9 Samir Nasri

Length of ban: 18 months

A player who often seems to be overlooked as a tremendous Premier League talent is Frenchman, Samir Nasri. The attacking midfielder played for Arsenal and Manchester City and won a plethora of accolades during his time in England. A technically gifted individual, the France international was simply unplayable in his prime. During the 2017-18 campaign, while Nasri was playing for the Turkish Süper Lig side, Antalyaspor, it was discovered that the midfielder had breached doping guidelines in 2016 in the form of an intravenous drip containing an assortment of vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients. While the substance in question is permitted in small quantities, Nasri had been given over 500 millilitres and was even photographed at the clinic where it had been administered in LA. Initially receiving a UEFA ban of 6 months before an appeal lengthened it to 18 months.

8 Deco

Length of ban: 12 months (rescinded)

The Portugal international was utterly spellbinding when he turned it on, and during his early years at Porto and Barcelona, the midfielder played with refreshing freedom that allowed the player to both refine his technical gift and, allow him to express himself through his daring creativity. Retiring in 2013 at Brazilian club Fluminese, the former Chelsea man was banned for a year after a diuretic that can be used as a masking agent to screen other prohibited substances. Fortunately, Deco was eventually cleared of the offence, after the laboratory conducting his sample made errors during the investigation, and as such was dropped by FIFA.

7 Andre Onana

Length of ban: 9 months

The acrobatic shot-stopper – with his cat-like reflexes and undoubted self-confidence – has been an eye-catching goalkeeper in world football for a number of seasons now. Having previously played for the likes of Ajax and Inter Milan, the 6’3 Cameroonian earned himself a transfer to Manchester United for a fee of £47 million in 2023 – although the move hasn’t gone too well so far. Back in February 2021, Andre Onana was banned for a 12-month period following adverse findings in a drug test, with Furosemide found in his blood, a banned substance. Onana protested his innocence, attributing the presence of such a substance to mistaking his wife’s pregnancy medication for something else. Although the Court of Arbitration for Sport looked at his case more favourably, he was still banned from playing for nine months.

6 Pep Guardiola

Length of ban: 4 months (later acquitted)

A caveat to this is that Pep Guardiola was actually twice cleared of this doping violation, so no offence was actually committed. Nevertheless, this was still very much regarded as a doping scandal in 2001. The Spaniard was still playing professionally for Italian side Brescia, and after a drugs test found Nandrolone in his blood, a potent anabolic steroid, he was given a four-month ban despite his protests. A mitigating factor in his sentence was that he allegedly was not aware that he was taking a banned substance at the time. Years later in 2009, the former midfielder was acquitted of all charges and his €50,000 fine was overturned.

5 Jaap Stam

Length of ban: 4 months

Jaap Stam built a reputation for being a no-nonsense, stern-faced, and bullish defender for the likes of Manchester United, AC Milan, Ajax, and PSV Eindhoven. One of the very best centre-halves of his era, Stam would be capped 67 times for his country, and would win nine major honours at club level. Yet, in 2001, while playing for Serie A side Lazio, Stam was banned from football for five months following a drug test that returned findings of Nandrolone in his bloodstream, the same anabolic steroid Guardiola had also been accused of consuming. Despite Stam’s protestations, he was still banned for four months, having had a month knocked off after a partly successful appeal.

4 Edgar Davids

Length of ban: 4 months

The bespectacled, or more pertinently, goggled Dutchman was one of the most distinctive footballers in the world both in appearance (even wearing the no.1 shirt in his career) and in playing style. The defensive midfielder, who was one of the defining footballers of his era, played for some of the world’s most renowned clubs, including Ajax, Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus, and Inter. As one of the foremost midfielding talents, it sent shockwaves through the sport, when, like his national team teammate, Jaap Stam, he also tested positive for the steroid, Nandrolone. Both the A and B samples returned positive results for the star, who had expected to receive a 16-month ban from playing, but after an appeal, it was reduced to just a four-month suspension.

3 Adrian Mutu

Length of ban: 7 months

While not strictly a doping scandal, the infamous case of Romania international, Adrian Mutu and his failed drug test in 2004 made headline news. The striker had moved to West London for £15 million during the 2003 summer transfer window from Italian side, Parma. As one of the first major signings of the Roman Abramovich era, Mutu signified Chelsea’s transition into one of the major players in English football. Big things were expected of the 24-year-old who’d knocked in 22 goals during the preceding campaign in Serie A.

Unfortunately, for both club and player, a year after moving, Mutu was found to have remnants of cocaine in his blood after a routine drugs test. Subsequently, he was banned from all football for seven months, and his contract at the Premier League side was terminated. A costly and lengthy legal battle ensued with Chelsea seeking compensation for breach of contract, and to this day are owed £14.3 million from Mutu.

2 Diego Maradona

Length of ban: 17 months

The Argentinian superstar was his country’s golden boy, albeit a troubled golden boy at that. A magician with a ball at his feet, the World Cup winner could manipulate a ball unlike anyone else. Throughout his career, Maradona battled with all sorts of issues away from the field that distracted him from the important matters on it. Alcohol, cocaine, and sex addiction were the main problems but his doping debacle came in the form of testing positive for five variants of ephedrine, a stimulant banned by FIFA, and was therefore sent home prematurely from the 1994 World Cup.

Nevertheless, this didn’t prevent Maradona from cementing his legacy in the game as one of the greatest players to ever play the game, a God in his home country of Argentina, and a darling of world football that fans around the world still appreciate to this very day.

1 Paul Pogba

Length of ban: 4 years (to be appealed)

For the sheer length of his ban, Pogba tops this list. Once regarded as one of the best players in the game – winning the World Cup with France – the midfielder’s career lost momentum after an ill-fated £89 transfer to Man United. His best years were spent in Italy with Juventus but a return to the Serie A club did not go well.

While fitness issues had stopped him from finding his rhythm, the 30-year-old was far from finished at the top level. That was until he received a four-year ban from football for failing an anti-doping test, after testosterone not produced by the body was detected. However, his punishment length could yet be reduced as he will appeal against this decision to the Court of Arbitration of Sport.