Croatian footballer Mario Vuskovic loses final appeal against four-year doping ban
Vuskovic, 23, tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO) in September 2022 and was initially banned by the German Football Association (DFB) for two years.
The ruling was appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) by Vuskovic, seeking to prove his innocence by demonstrating errors he claimed were made during the testing procedure, but also by WADA and NADA — the global and Germany's national anti-doping agency — in pursuit of the standard four-year ban that EPO use carries across other sport.
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CAS ruled in their favour, extending Vuskovic's ban by a further two years, preventing him from returning to football until November 2026. Vuskovic's latest appeal, which likely represented his final legal avenue, was made to the Swiss Federal Court. A spokesperson for the court confirmed the rejection of the appeal to The Athletic.
The chances of success were considered slim, as the appeal only considered whether procedural errors had been made during CAS's examination of the previous appeal, not the case itself.
Theoretically, Vuskovic could now take his case to the European Court of Human Rights but that is considered unlikely.
It leaves the player, who was capped up to under-21 level for Croatia and linked with a move to the Premier League before his ban, in stasis. Vuskovic is the first football player in the sport's history to be banned for EPO usage and a return to a top division after such a long absence would be unprecedented.
Hamburg have been supportive and several club officials remain convinced of his innocence. In addition, his team-mates have consistently displayed his name and number on the back of a replica shirt after games — many of which he has been in attendance for. A popular football sticker around Hamburg also shows his name and shirt number, and the demand to 'Free Vuskovic'.
None of which, though, has had any legal effect. And what happens next is uncertain.
Vuskovic is allowed to resume team training in September 2026, with a theoretical return to first-team action two months later. When CAS issued its judgement in August 2024, extending the ban by a further two years, Vuskovic and Hamburg agreed to the termination of his then-contract. It was replaced by a future agreement, that would begin once his ban expires. In the meantime, Vuskovic must train by himself. There is a possibility of an off-field role with the club over the next 18 months, but Hamburg are yet to comment publicly on that.
(Arne Dedert/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
The epicenter of stalking in sports? Why tennis stands apart
In April of 1993, Monica Seles and Steffi Graf were dueling for supremacy at the top of women's tennis. Graf had won eight out of the nine Grand Slam tournaments played between 1988 and early 1990, before Seles burst onto the women's tour and won eight of the next twelve. Their titles and their rivalry catapulted them into stardom — and danger. At an event in Hamburg, Günter Parche, a fan fixated on Graf, ran onto the court during a changeover as Seles played Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria. He stabbed Seles between the shoulder blades before being restrained. The physical and emotional toll kept Seles away from competitive tennis for over two years, and Seles, who looked predestined to win dozens of major titles, would win just one more in her career. Graf would win 22. That infamous moment stands out in tennis history, but it is also part of a pattern. A couple of years earlier, at the French Open, Graf's father punched James Levee, a wealthy man who had lavished gifts on a teenage Graf and then switched his attention to Seles, also a teenager. In 1990, another fan slit his wrists in front of Graf, while another broke into her home shortly after Seles' stabbing. Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova and the Williams sisters — all high-profile players or rising phenoms — reported encounters with fixated people around the turn of the century; Grand Slam champions Maria Sharapova, Simona Halep and Caroline Wozniacki did so in the early 2000s. Three decades on from Hamburg in 1993, modern stars of the sport are experiencing more of the same. In February, at the Dubai Tennis Championships, Emma Raducanu broke down in tears mid-match after spotting a man who had given her a letter and asked for a photo the previous day. She'd noticed him at a number of her previous events as well. Six-time Grand Slam champion Iga Świątek was harassed in Miami this year when a man who had made threats online showed up and verbally abused her during practice. On the first day of this year's Wimbledon, Yulia Putintseva said she wouldn't continue her first-round match until a spectator she called 'dangerous' and 'crazy,' and who she feared had a knife, had been removed. Putintseva lost the match 6-0, 6-0. Katie Boulter was followed by someone in a car during a tournament; Danielle Collins had to deal with numerous fixated individuals, one of whom called her friends and family at work. Coco Gauff told reporters at the Madrid Open in April that someone tried to follow her and her dad to their home in Florida when she was 15. Athletes in all sports deal with fixated individuals, but women's tennis has been and continues to be the epicenter of the issue. People involved in the sport and stalking experts say that tennis has particular conditions and characteristics that make its players targets, regardless of the era. 'I think it's to do with the individuality of the sport, and then a combination of precociousness, attractiveness and visibility,' said a former Women's Tennis Association (WTA) executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity to maintain relationships in the sport. 'You put all those things together and women's tennis is a perfect storm for fixated individuals.' Tennis has always inspired a level of devotion to its stars, and no other sport has as many female icons. Whether it's on the ATP (men's) or WTA side, many fans define themselves by being for one player and against their rival. The growth of social media and the expectation that players should be accessible to their fans have only intensified this parasocial relationship. Players' match schedules and practice schedules are posted online and at events, making themselves easy to find in less guarded moments, with fewer people around than would be in a stadium for a match. And even at the biggest venues in the sport, courtside seating lets fans get very close to players, and they walk from place to place largely in public view. Pam Shriver, who was president of the WTA player council at the time Seles was stabbed, recalled the impact the incident had on the wider tennis world. 'What happened with Monica was so tragic and devastating that it forced change. We all became more aware to report any kind of behaviour that seemed obsessive, fanatical or threatening,' she said. 'Look, if you don't feel safe, you can't perform to the best of your ability.' Less than a third (29 percent) of stalking victims reported their situations to police in 2019, according to a study published by the U.S. Department of Justice. For myriad reasons, victims often choose to endure without alerting law enforcement or going public with their ordeal. Tennis players became more accustomed to speaking up in the wake of the Seles incident, and that may be the clearest reason women's tennis continues to be at the forefront of the issue. Its athletes are reporting problems and raising awareness at a higher rate than those in other sports. Raducanu has talked openly about her recent incident and one three years ago, when a 35-year-old man, Amrit Magar, was given a five-year restraining order after he walked 23 miles to her family home. She told reporters that 'in England it's pretty difficult for me to go out and about. Sometimes I've had neck pain from looking at the floor so much with a cap on.' In an interview with The Athletic, Collins said that the measures she took after her experiences with fixated individuals affected fans' perception of her. 'I really wanted my privacy for a long time after that,' she said, explaining that her decision to keep a low profile led some people to perceive her as cold or distant. Australian Open champion Madison Keys said in an interview in April that 'a handful of cases' at home had affected her everyday life, while world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka described asking for additional security at some events. And though it is largely women who are affected, male stars of the sport experience the impact of tennis' ripe conditions for parasocial relationships. Carlos Alcaraz, one of the most-trailed players in the sport, said in a news conference in June that while he feels safe at tournaments, he has felt uneasy on the streets among fans. 'There are some situations that I felt weird, let's say,' he said. As patterns of fixated behavior have changed, so too have the security measures that players and tournaments take. Those measures, while imperfect, have helped the sport identify and deal with problematic individuals. 'When we think about when my generation played, you had maybe a coach and an agent,' Seles told The Athletic. 'I didn't have six people in my box, so they have that extra layer of, I think, security.' In 2023, the WTA organization appointed Lindsay Brandon as its first dedicated director of safeguarding. The WTA, alongside the International Tennis Federation, the All England Club that operates Wimbledon, and the United States Tennis Association launched Threat Matrix. Developed by Signify Group, an AI firm, and supported by fixated threat specialists Theseus Risk Management and risk mitigation company Quest, the program monitors players' public social media accounts for abusive or threatening content. In its first full-year report released in June, it revealed that 15 cases had to be escalated to law enforcement. But how much dedicated security they can provide varies among events. The four Grand Slams — Wimbledon and the Australian, French and U.S. Opens — partner with the tours and outside firms to manage security, while at smaller events, players might walk around sites with only their coaches for company. In the immediate aftermath of Parche's attack on Seles, tennis became more vigilant about security in a physical sense. Players' chairs were moved farther from stands and guards stood on courts during changeovers. But fans can still get incredibly close to players at events of all sizes — especially in the early rounds of Grand Slam tournaments, when the volume of matches puts some of the biggest stars in the sport on courts more akin to those at a small community club. Czech men's player Jiří Lehečka said he felt unsafe at the French Open during a match in May. Fans in the front row for his second-round match against Spain's Alejandro Davidovich Fokina on Court 13 were so close that they were pinching his towels at the end of the match. 'I think it's unacceptable,' he told reporters in June. 'It's not about the towel, it's about that they have access to our personal things. I don't really think that this should happen.' The French Tennis Federation did not respond when asked about the incident. As Świątek found out, online abuse can also move into the physical world, where the diffusion of resources again takes over. A tournament like Wimbledon can work with national police, terrorism, and security authorities, along with the tennis tours' additional protocols. It has behavioral detection experts on hand to identify potential risks from fixated individuals, 24/7 closed-circuit television and foot and dog patrols. Smaller tournaments, further down the tennis ladder, do not have the resources to employ these kinds of failsafes — and even larger events have seen incidents slip through. The Dubai Tennis Championships, at which Raducanu was targeted, is a WTA 1,000 event, one tier below a Grand Slam. Ryan Trudgeon, a freelance close protection officer in the entertainment and sports world, remembers the job spec for the ATP Tour Finals at the O2 in London. He escorted players from their hotel to the venue, taking transport on a private boat and the London public transport system. 'You'd recce all the sites you're going to well in advance so that you know exactly where you're going,' Trudgeon said. 'It's all about situational awareness. Even if you're in a safe place, there's always a chance someone has bad intentions. If something feels off, it probably is.' The real challenge comes during a live match. 'You can't remove the principal mid-match,' Trudgeon said. 'Elsewhere, you could simply move them or investigate a suspicious person. Whatever the situation, it's a case of always being dynamic.' WTA chief executive Portia Archer said in a phone interview in March: 'Keeping our environment safe is an important priority for us. It's something we take very seriously.' But the sport cannot eliminate the characteristics that attract behaviors that tip from fandom into fixation without eradicating the essential nature that makes it one of the most captivating in the world. 'The knowledge out there is so much more. I mean, what happened to me has never happened before and knock on wood never will happen again,' Seles said. 'It hasn't happened in 30 years, so I hope never will.' This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Culture, Tennis, A1: Must-Read Stories, women's sports, Women's Tennis 2025 The Athletic Media Company
New York Times
9 hours ago
- New York Times
The epicenter of stalking in sports? Why tennis stands apart
In April of 1993, Monica Seles and Steffi Graf were dueling for supremacy at the top of women's tennis. Graf had won eight out of the nine Grand Slam tournaments played between 1988 and early 1990, before Seles burst onto the women's tour and won eight of the next twelve. Their titles and their rivalry catapulted them into stardom — and danger. Advertisement At an event in Hamburg, Günter Parche, a fan fixated on Graf, ran onto the court during a changeover as Seles played Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria. He stabbed Seles between the shoulder blades before being restrained. The physical and emotional toll kept Seles away from competitive tennis for over two years, and Seles, who looked predestined to win dozens of major titles, would win just one more in her career. Graf would win 22. That infamous moment stands out in tennis history, but it is also part of a pattern. A couple of years earlier, at the French Open, Graf's father punched James Levee, a wealthy man who had lavished gifts on a teenage Graf and then switched his attention to Seles, also a teenager. In 1990, another fan slit his wrists in front of Graf, while another broke into her home shortly after Seles' stabbing. Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova and the Williams sisters — all high-profile players or rising phenoms — reported encounters with fixated people around the turn of the century; Grand Slam champions Maria Sharapova, Simona Halep and Caroline Wozniacki did so in the early 2000s. Three decades on from Hamburg in 1993, modern stars of the sport are experiencing more of the same. In February, at the Dubai Tennis Championships, Emma Raducanu broke down in tears mid-match after spotting a man who had given her a letter and asked for a photo the previous day. She'd noticed him at a number of her previous events as well. Six-time Grand Slam champion Iga Świątek was harassed in Miami this year when a man who had made threats online showed up and verbally abused her during practice. On the first day of this year's Wimbledon, Yulia Putintseva said she wouldn't continue her first-round match until a spectator she called 'dangerous' and 'crazy,' and who she feared had a knife, had been removed. Putintseva lost the match 6-0, 6-0. Advertisement Katie Boulter was followed by someone in a car during a tournament; Danielle Collins had to deal with numerous fixated individuals, one of whom called her friends and family at work. Coco Gauff told reporters at the Madrid Open in April that someone tried to follow her and her dad to their home in Florida when she was 15. Athletes in all sports deal with fixated individuals, but women's tennis has been and continues to be the epicenter of the issue. People involved in the sport and stalking experts say that tennis has particular conditions and characteristics that make its players targets, regardless of the era. 'I think it's to do with the individuality of the sport, and then a combination of precociousness, attractiveness and visibility,' said a former Women's Tennis Association (WTA) executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity to maintain relationships in the sport. 'You put all those things together and women's tennis is a perfect storm for fixated individuals.' Tennis has always inspired a level of devotion to its stars, and no other sport has as many female icons. Whether it's on the ATP (men's) or WTA side, many fans define themselves by being for one player and against their rival. The growth of social media and the expectation that players should be accessible to their fans have only intensified this parasocial relationship. Players' match schedules and practice schedules are posted online and at events, making themselves easy to find in less guarded moments, with fewer people around than would be in a stadium for a match. And even at the biggest venues in the sport, courtside seating lets fans get very close to players, and they walk from place to place largely in public view. Pam Shriver, who was president of the WTA player council at the time Seles was stabbed, recalled the impact the incident had on the wider tennis world. Advertisement 'What happened with Monica was so tragic and devastating that it forced change. We all became more aware to report any kind of behaviour that seemed obsessive, fanatical or threatening,' she said. 'Look, if you don't feel safe, you can't perform to the best of your ability.' Less than a third (29 percent) of stalking victims reported their situations to police in 2019, according to a study published by the U.S. Department of Justice. For myriad reasons, victims often choose to endure without alerting law enforcement or going public with their ordeal. Tennis players became more accustomed to speaking up in the wake of the Seles incident, and that may be the clearest reason women's tennis continues to be at the forefront of the issue. Its athletes are reporting problems and raising awareness at a higher rate than those in other sports. Raducanu has talked openly about her recent incident and one three years ago, when a 35-year-old man, Amrit Magar, was given a five-year restraining order after he walked 23 miles to her family home. She told reporters that 'in England it's pretty difficult for me to go out and about. Sometimes I've had neck pain from looking at the floor so much with a cap on.' In an interview with The Athletic, Collins said that the measures she took after her experiences with fixated individuals affected fans' perception of her. 'I really wanted my privacy for a long time after that,' she said, explaining that her decision to keep a low profile led some people to perceive her as cold or distant. Australian Open champion Madison Keys said in an interview in April that 'a handful of cases' at home had affected her everyday life, while world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka described asking for additional security at some events. And though it is largely women who are affected, male stars of the sport experience the impact of tennis' ripe conditions for parasocial relationships. Carlos Alcaraz, one of the most-trailed players in the sport, said in a news conference in June that while he feels safe at tournaments, he has felt uneasy on the streets among fans. 'There are some situations that I felt weird, let's say,' he said. As patterns of fixated behavior have changed, so too have the security measures that players and tournaments take. Those measures, while imperfect, have helped the sport identify and deal with problematic individuals. 'When we think about when my generation played, you had maybe a coach and an agent,' Seles told The Athletic. 'I didn't have six people in my box, so they have that extra layer of, I think, security.' Advertisement In 2023, the WTA organization appointed Lindsay Brandon as its first dedicated director of safeguarding. The WTA, alongside the International Tennis Federation, the All England Club that operates Wimbledon, and the United States Tennis Association launched Threat Matrix. Developed by Signify Group, an AI firm, and supported by fixated threat specialists Theseus Risk Management and risk mitigation company Quest, the program monitors players' public social media accounts for abusive or threatening content. In its first full-year report released in June, it revealed that 15 cases had to be escalated to law enforcement. But how much dedicated security they can provide varies among events. The four Grand Slams — Wimbledon and the Australian, French and U.S. Opens — partner with the tours and outside firms to manage security, while at smaller events, players might walk around sites with only their coaches for company. In the immediate aftermath of Parche's attack on Seles, tennis became more vigilant about security in a physical sense. Players' chairs were moved farther from stands and guards stood on courts during changeovers. But fans can still get incredibly close to players at events of all sizes — especially in the early rounds of Grand Slam tournaments, when the volume of matches puts some of the biggest stars in the sport on courts more akin to those at a small community club. Czech men's player Jiří Lehečka said he felt unsafe at the French Open during a match in May. Fans in the front row for his second-round match against Spain's Alejandro Davidovich Fokina on Court 13 were so close that they were pinching his towels at the end of the match. 'I think it's unacceptable,' he told reporters in June. 'It's not about the towel, it's about that they have access to our personal things. I don't really think that this should happen.' The French Tennis Federation did not respond when asked about the incident. Advertisement As Świątek found out, online abuse can also move into the physical world, where the diffusion of resources again takes over. A tournament like Wimbledon can work with national police, terrorism, and security authorities, along with the tennis tours' additional protocols. It has behavioral detection experts on hand to identify potential risks from fixated individuals, 24/7 closed-circuit television and foot and dog patrols. Smaller tournaments, further down the tennis ladder, do not have the resources to employ these kinds of failsafes — and even larger events have seen incidents slip through. The Dubai Tennis Championships, at which Raducanu was targeted, is a WTA 1,000 event, one tier below a Grand Slam. Ryan Trudgeon, a freelance close protection officer in the entertainment and sports world, remembers the job spec for the ATP Tour Finals at the O2 in London. He escorted players from their hotel to the venue, taking transport on a private boat and the London public transport system. 'You'd recce all the sites you're going to well in advance so that you know exactly where you're going,' Trudgeon said. 'It's all about situational awareness. Even if you're in a safe place, there's always a chance someone has bad intentions. If something feels off, it probably is.' The real challenge comes during a live match. 'You can't remove the principal mid-match,' Trudgeon said. 'Elsewhere, you could simply move them or investigate a suspicious person. Whatever the situation, it's a case of always being dynamic.' WTA chief executive Portia Archer said in a phone interview in March: 'Keeping our environment safe is an important priority for us. It's something we take very seriously.' But the sport cannot eliminate the characteristics that attract behaviors that tip from fandom into fixation without eradicating the essential nature that makes it one of the most captivating in the world. Advertisement 'The knowledge out there is so much more. I mean, what happened to me has never happened before and knock on wood never will happen again,' Seles said. 'It hasn't happened in 30 years, so I hope never will.' (Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Bill Kostroun / Associated Press; Julien De Rosa, Mike Hewitt/ Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
USA Today
2 days ago
- USA Today
Crystal Palace demoted from Europa to Conference League, mulling legal action
Crystal Palace said on Tuesday they are seeking legal advice on possible next steps after the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed the club's appeal against UEFA's decision to demote them from the Europa League to the Conference League. European soccer's governing body made the decision over Palace's multi-club ownership rule breach because at the time of assessment on March 1 the John Textor-founded Eagle Football Group were majority owners of fellow Europa League side Olympique Lyonnais and also held shares in Palace. U.S. businessman Textor's Eagle Football Holdings sold their stake in Palace last month. However, CAS upheld UEFA's ruling on Monday, and dismissed Palace's argument that the club received unfair treatment in comparison to Lyon and Nottingham Forest, with the latter replacing them in the Europa League. "The decision by UEFA and followed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport shows that sporting merit is rendered meaningless," Palace, which had qualified for the Europa League as FA Cup winners, said in a statement. "It appears that certain clubs, organisations and individuals have a unique privilege and power ... while we respect the CAS tribunal members, the process is designed to severely restrict and, in our case, make it almost impossible to receive a fair hearing. "UEFA's decision has wider implications for the governance of the sport. A combination of poorly conceived regulations and their unequal application means our brilliant fans will be deprived of the chance to watch this team compete in the Europa League for the first time in our history." UEFA and CAS were not immediately available to comment. Palace said the European Court of Justice's ruling earlier this month, which allows national courts to conduct in-depth reviews of arbitral awards by CAS to ensure they are compliant with EU law, will ensure greater scrutiny of sport's top court. "Only then will fairness and due process be granted to every team," Palace added. "Although we continue to take legal advice on the next steps, we will compete in the Conference League." Palace, who won the Community Shield on Sunday with victory over Premier League champions Liverpool on penalties, are in the Conference League qualifying playoff round later this month.
