Mykhailo Mudryk's doping charge explained: Can Chelsea sack him if found guilty and could he appeal?

New York Times

6 hours ago

After provisionally suspending Mykhailo Mudryk in December for a failed drugs test, the English Football Association (FA) has now charged the Chelsea winger for violating its anti-doping regulations.
This means Mudryk, who has not played a competitive game of football since the end of November, could now face a maximum penalty of a four-year suspension.
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Although the 24-year-old was in Wroclaw, Poland, to watch Chelsea lift the UEFA Conference League on May 28, he is not with the squad for their ongoing involvement in the FIFA Club World Cup, which is taking place in the United States.
In statement released on Wednesday afternoon, the FA said: 'We can confirm that Mykhailo Mudryk has been charged with anti-doping rule violations alleging the presence and/or use of a prohibited substance, in terms of regulations 3 and 4 of The FA's Anti-Doping Regulations. As this is an ongoing case, we are not in a position to comment further at this time.'
As per the FA's anti-doping regulations, Mudryk now has 20 days to decide whether to accept the finding and whatever punishments follow, or request a hearing with the FA.
Although a four-year ban would be the worst-case scenario for Mudryk, a possible suspension could range anywhere from two years to a month, depending on any mitigating factors.
Here, we explain the background to his case — some of which appeared in an article previously published in December — and what happens now.
In December, it emerged that a routine drugs test found Mudryk to have — in Chelsea's words — 'an adverse finding' in a urine sample provided by the player. This immediately led to a provisional suspension from Chelsea's first team as they awaited the results of further testing.
When urine samples are collected, they are put into two separate containers. The A sample is used for the initial test, and if that comes back positive, they then test the B sample to verify the accuracy of the first result.
So, following Mudryk's positive A sample, his B sample was then tested, which verified that he had tested positive for meldonium, a banned substance.
The Athletic previously reported that Mudryk returned the positive test for meldonium after being away on international duty in November during a period that saw him feature in Ukraine's Nations League fixtures against Georgia and Albania.
Before his positive test became public knowledge, Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca was asked about Mudryk's absence and simply said he is 'out', or that he was ill, without giving any further reason.
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Neither Mudryk or Chelsea have spoken publicly since the FA announced its decision to charge him on Wednesday.
In December, the club issued a statement saying that Mudryk 'has confirmed categorically that he has never knowingly used any banned substances'. In the same statement, the player said: 'This has come as a complete shock as I have never knowingly used any banned substances or broken any rules, and am working closely with my team to investigate how this could have happened.'
If the charge is upheld, the player's options would be limited.
'If a ban is imposed, he will have the option to try to reduce the length of the ban by appealing the sanction,' says Dan Chapman, a partner and head of employment and sports law at Leathes Prior.
Chapman notes that any appeal by Mudryk would be to the FA, though his legal team may also explore whether they can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), which is where Paul Pogba had his four-year ban reduced to 18 months.
Chapman says that the 'domestic process is reasonably speedy', both in terms of possible sanctions and any appeal.
'Appeals to the European system are complex, even if available, and will take some while,' he adds. 'The thing with Pogba was that he was of an age where the sanction was career-ending and challenging the ban was his only play.
If Mudryk feels that he no realistic prospect of overturning any ban, the situation could change.
'Depending on how long the ban is for,' Chapman continues, 'the advice might be that once the FA process has been concluded, he will need to accept the outcome and that he will still have plenty of time to play after the ban ends.'
If the FA finds against Mudryk then, unlike the player, Chelsea would have several options.
In the standard Premier League contracts that are in place between all players and clubs, there is a definition of gross misconduct, and being found to have taken a prohibited substance falls under the definition, as it does in accordance with FA rules.
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'The club, on the face of it, would have a relatively open-and-shut case to say the player is guilty of gross misconduct and, if they wanted to, they could terminate the player's contract,' Chapman says. 'They would need to give 14 days' notice to the player in writing if that is what they wanted to do.
'There is an appeal process available to the player, and we are not talking about an appeal against the drugs finding, but an appeal against the decision of the club to terminate his contract for gross misconduct.
'The player can follow that process, although it is hard to see how any appeal could realistically be successful, if the FA allegations have been upheld.'
When Mudryk joined Chelsea in January 2023, he signed an eight-and-a-half-year contract, the last year of which is optional, meaning he could be tied to the club for another six years.
But Mudryk would not have the remainder of his contract paid out if he is sacked for gross misconduct. Chelsea would only need to pay him for the 14 days.
Another option open to Chelsea, Chapman explains, is that they may decide to keep Mudryk, given his age, potential and remaining contract length. In this scenario, the Premier League side may seek to renegotiate the Ukrainian's contract and put him on a significantly lower wage while he serves the ban.
It would still be up to Mudryk, however, to sign a new deal on reduced terms. He may instead fancy his chances as a free agent if the alternative to that is being sacked by the club.
If Chelsea opt to sack Mudryk, then Chapman says they could in theory also sue him for damages, which is what they successfully did when they sacked Adrian Mutu in 2004 after he tested positive for cocaine and was handed a seven-month ban.
'That is a very rare step, but that is an option open to them,' adds Chapman. 'They would argue they bought an asset for £80million, he breached the contract, and now the asset is worth virtually nothing.
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'Not many clubs would ever want to do that because the message you are sending future players is that if you sign for us and things go wrong, then we may sue you. This doesn't tend to happen, but it can. The signs so far, and who knows whether this is a justified position not being privy to the facts, is that Chelsea are being fully supportive of their player.'
A prohibited substance, in short.
Meldonium is a heart disease drug developed in 1970 in the former Soviet Union. It is designed to combat ischemia, a condition where blood flow is restricted to body tissue, muscles or organs.
It boosts metabolism and increases blood flow and, by extension, the exercise capacity of athletes. It was added to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)'s list of banned substances in January 2016 after its previous inclusion in the agency's monitoring programme the year before.
Former Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova had been the most high-profile case of an athlete being banned for using meldonium. A failed drugs test at the 2016 Australian Open led to a two-year ban issued by the International Tennis Federation, with Sharapova accepting she had made 'a huge mistake' in taking the substance.
Sharapova told a news conference in Los Angeles she had been given a medicine for 10 years by her family doctor and had been unaware that it had also been known as meldonium, which had been added to WADA's prohibited list in the weeks before her failed test.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reduced Sharapova's ban to 15 months in October 2016 after finding that she did not deliberately cheat and that there was no 'significant fault or negligence on her part'.
The use of meldonium was not uncommon by Eastern European athletes before its ban, but it was the subject of a doping scandal in 2016 when the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia replaced its under-18s squad with an under-17s team at the World Under-18s Championships due to several players returning positive test results.
Philip Buckingham
Adverse findings are few and far between and, most commonly, have been due to traces of recreational drugs being discovered.
Mutu, goalkeeper Mark Bosnich and one-time England midfielder Jake Livermore were all given suspensions by the FA for testing positive for traces of cocaine, as was the Cardiff winger Nathaniel Mendez-Laing more recently, in 2020.
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Further afield, the use of performance-enhancing drugs is rare but not without precedent.
In February, Pogba was banned for four years when found to have taken a doping agent while at Juventus, a suspension that was later reduced to 18 months when an appeal to CAS found the consumption of the drug had not been intentional. He is still without a club.
In February 2021, Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana, then playing for Ajax, was banned for a year by UEFA after testing positive for furosemide, a diuretic. That was reduced to nine months by CAS after the court accepted Onana's explanation that he had confused the medication — which he said belonged to his wife — with aspirin.
On November 4, Oscar Zambrano, the Hull City midfielder, was also given a lengthy ban.
Zambrano had returned a positive test last season when playing for his Ecuadorian parent club LDU Quito but had remained eligible to feature until CONMEBOL issued a ban for breaching anti-doping rules. Hull, who had only signed the player on loan, said Zambrano intended to appeal through CAS but the case is not yet listed.
Philip Buckingham
Doping bans ordinarily fall between two and four years, although appeals can reduce the length of those bans, as was seen in the case of Pogba.
'If we look at what happened with Paul Pogba, his violation and the consequences that followed, that was a lengthy ban,' says Jibreel Tramboo, a sports lawyer at Church Court Chambers. 'I understand the circumstances are different but the point still follows.
'Anti-doping regulations are a strict liability offence. Athletes are fully responsible for substances found in their bodies. It's irrelevant if it's accidental or intentional. If it's there, it's a breach. You could argue a reduced sanction if he can demonstrate no significant fault or negligence in what he's taken but there is arguably no defence.'
Philip Buckingham