As soon as the most costly footballer on the planet, France star Paul Pogba has sunk to a brand new low after being provisionally suspended for a doping violation.
Accidents and a weird blackmail plot involving his personal brother have dominated his second spell at Juventus, and the newest revelations got here simply because the midfielder appeared able to get again to his greatest.
Italy’s anti-doping authority NADO revealed on Monday that Pogba, who continues to be solely 30, confirmed elevated ranges of testosterone in a take a look at taken after Juve’s season-opening win at Udinese, a match wherein he didn’t even play.
Pogba has since been a substitute in Juve’s different two Serie A matches and regardless of selecting up a thigh knock in opposition to Empoli earlier this month may properly have featured in Saturday’s residence fixture in opposition to Lazio had he not been dealt the newest of a collection of blows to his profession.
The take a look at consequence got here quickly after the discharge of an interview with Al Jazeera wherein he mentioned he needed to make his critics “eat their phrases”.
“I wish to present them I’m not weak. They will speak dangerous about me. I’ll by no means hand over,” he mentioned.
He has solely began one match since returning to Juve as a free agent from Manchester United in July final yr, six years after leaving the Turin giants for a then-world-record 105 million euros with 4 Italian league titles to his title.
It was a transfer which was imagined to regenerate his profession which had gone stale in England, however he nearly instantly suffered a severe knee harm in pre-season.
‘Cash adjustments folks’
And his preliminary resolution to not endure surgical procedure in a bid to make the Qatar World Cup finally back-fired, ending his probabilities of serving to France defend their world title and additional complicating his membership marketing campaign.
Pogba was a key determine within the 2018 triumph in Russia and scored one in every of France’s objectives of their 4-2 win over Croatia in that yr’s closing, however he has not featured for his nation since a pleasant win for Les Bleus over South Africa in March final yr.
From being on prime of the world Pogba has slowly slipped all the way down to the depths, ravaged by accidents and a tough private life which he admits has been adversely affected by the huge sums of cash earned by soccer’s prime gamers.
“Cash adjustments folks. It will possibly break up a household. It will possibly create a conflict,” he mentioned.
“Typically I used to be simply on my own considering, ‘I don’t wish to have cash anymore. I simply don’t wish to play anymore. I simply wish to be with regular folks, so they’ll love me for me — not for the celebrity, not for the cash’.”
Pogba speaks from bitter expertise, as a month after tearing knee ligaments his brother Mathias launched a video wherein he threatened to disclose secrets and techniques about his celebrity sibling.
French investigators have been later instructed of how he was held at gunpoint by childhood associates and two hooded males armed with assault rifles, who lambasted him for not serving to them out financially and demanded 13 million euros.
Pogba ended up paying 100,000 euros of the sum and the affair taught him that “the one individuals who can harm are the people who find themselves near you”.
“They’re those who can destroy you,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
Pogba faces an anxious watch for the results of his ‘B’ pattern, with the spectre of a possible four-year ban hanging over a participant whose life has became one thing of a nightmare.