Doping: France Head Coach Defends Paul Pogba After Football Ban

The head coach of France national team, Didier Deschamps, has insisted that French midfielder, Paul Pogba did not plan to dope.

Paul Pogba, who left Manchester United for Juventus in the summer of 2022, moved from injury woes to a doping scandal in the summer of 2023.

The scandal dragged on until Thursday, February 29 when the football authorities in Italy announced that the 30-year-old French midfielder had been found guilty of doping.

Hence, Paul Pogba was slammed with a four-year ban from football which means that he is expected to stay away from professional football until he clocks 34 years old.

The 2018 FIFA World Cup winner announced on Thursday that he would appeal the judgment as he stressed that he has never taken a banned sustained in his football career.

In the same vein, Didier Deschamps who coached Paul Pogba and others to win the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, stressed that the former Manchester United player is not the kind of player that would take to abusing banned substances.

“I don’t believe for a minute that Pogba intended to or wanted to dope,” Deschamps said as quoted by L’Équipe.

“Just like the judgment announced by the Italian anti-doping tribunal on Thursday, what Paul has experienced these past months has been extremely difficult and I can’t be insensitive to his pain, given what he has done with the national team and the relationships that have been formed with the France national team.

“His situation saddens me and I really hope that things will work out.”