Chelsea’s Mykhailo Mudryk has been provisionally suspended from football after being notified of a positive drugs test by the Football Association.
The winger has not featured in the club’s past five matches. Enzo Maresca, Chelsea’s manager, has cited illness as the cause of Mudryk’s absence.
However it has emerged that Mudryk, who has struggled since joining Chelsea for £89m in January 2023, has been missing since producing a contaminated A sample.
The Ukraine international is waiting to find out whether the result of a B sample confirms the initial findings.
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A club statement said: “Chelsea Football Club can confirm the Football Association recently contacted our player Mykhailo Mudryk concerning an adverse finding in a routine urine test.
“Both the club and Mykhailo fully support the FA’s testing programme and all our players, including Mykhailo, are regularly tested. Mykhailo has confirmed categorically that he has never knowingly used any banned substances.
“Both Mykhailo and the club will now work with the relevant authorities to establish what has caused the adverse finding. The club will not be commenting any further.”
Mudryk has started only one Premier League game this season, in which he was taken off at half-time, but has been a regular in the Conference League and Carabao Cup. His most recent appearance was at Heidenheim on 28 November, when he scored in Chelsea’s 2-0 victory.He posted on Instagram: “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.
“I know that I have not done anything wrong and remain hopeful that I will be back on the pitch soon. I cannot say any more now due to the confidentiality of the process, but I will as soon as I can.”
Paul Pogba was suspended for four years by Italy’s national anti-doping organisation in September 2023 after a positive test but that was reduced to 18 months after an appeal to the court of arbitration for sport. The midfielder said after the reduced ban was confirmed: “I always stated that I never knowingly breached World Anti-Doping Agency [Wada] regulations when I took a nutritional supplement prescribed to me by a doctor, which does not affect or enhance the performance of male athletes.”
The news was broken by the Ukrainian publication Tribuna, which said Mudryk had tested positive for meldonium. The tennis player Maria Sharapova received a two-year ban, reduced to 15 months on appeal in 2016, for continuing to take meldonium after it was added to the Wada banned list.
Meldonium may be used in a clinical setting to treat a lack of blood flow to parts of the body, particularly in cases of angina or heart failure, and evidence indicates it may improve exercise capacity in athletes. The Guardian has not been able to independently verify that Mudryk tested positive for meldonium. His agent did not respond to a request for comment.
The FA’s anti-doping advice card for players starts by stating: “As a player you are solely responsible for any banned substance you use or that is found in your system, regardless of how it got there and whether there was an intention to cheat or not.” It points players to the Wada prohibited list and says they are “strongly advised to be very cautious if they choose to take any supplement”.
The FA declined to comment.
