Chelsea winger Mykhailo Mudryk is facing the prospect of a four-year ban after being charged with anti-doping rule violations by the Football Association.
The Ukrainian would not be the first Premier League footballer to serve a ban for failing a drugs test, but the length of it would be considerably more severe than anything English football has seen in the recent past.
We’ve identified eight players who were handed drugs bans by the FA:
Chris Armstrong
The first Premier League player to fail a drugs test, Crystal Palace striker Armstrong was banned for four matches after he’d tested positive for cannabis in March 1995.
He bounced back from that relatively minor indiscretion, joining Tottenham later that year as Jurgen Klinsmann’s replacement. He scored 62 goals in 173 appearances for Spurs.
Unfortunately, he’d face further drug-related problems later in life. In 2016, Armstrong was arrested for possession of cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy.
Five years later, he was treated for drug and alcohol problems after assaulting staff and causing criminal damage at a Tesco.
Mark Bosnich
The Australian was sacked by Chelsea after breaching the FA’s doping control regulations, for which he was served a nine-month ban.
Bosnich still maintains to this day that his drink was spiked on a night out and that he didn’t touch drugs until his football career was effectively over. After leaving Stamford Bridge, he developed an addiction to cocaine and has spoken candidly about his battle.
Later on, he recalled how a 21-year-old John Terry tried to warn him off going down that path:
“The unrelenting tornado I found myself in personally when I was in London had its roots, in a way, when JT had a problem with the same people earlier,” Bosnich told The Daily Telegraph.
“I got mixed up with a bad crowd and he warned me off in no uncertain terms.
“Knowing that these people were now involved with me, one day in the dressing room, in front of the entire squad, John stood up and told me what these people were about and to stay away from them.
“Taken aback somewhat, and feeling bulletproof as usual, I told him thanks for the advice, but I would make the call myself.
“I should have listened to him. If I had, I would never had got into the troubles that I did. The whole mess ended up curtailing my career.”
Rio Ferdinand
Let’s state categorically as possible for any lawyers reading: Ferdinand did not fail a drugs test. He was banned for eight months for missing a drugs test.
An independent tribunal found the defender guilty of misconduct after he failed to take a test after being selected to give a sample at Manchester United’s Carrington training ground back in September 2003.
The punishment saw him miss the majority of United’s 2003-04 campaign and ruled him out of appearing for England at Euro 2004. He also received a £50,000 fine.
“A guy comes to the training ground to do the drugs test and I forgot that he was there and went out for lunch. I looked at my messages and realised I’d missed it. I said I was coming back but they’d already left and it all kicked off from there really,” Ferdinand told Stripped with Specs & Vuj.
“The reason I got cornrows was the drugs test. I got banned for missing the drugs tests and to prove my innocence that I hadn’t taken any form of substance, I had to let my hair get to two inches so that I could take a hair follicle test that goes back a year or 18 months.”
“My indignation endures to this day,” Sir Alex Ferguson wrote in his 2013 autobiography.
Adrian Mutu
Bosnich was not the only Chelsea figure who faced a drugs ban and issues around cocaine in the early noughties.
The Romanian forward was among the Blues’ first big-money signings of the Roman Abramovich era. He scored 10 goals in his debut season but didn’t see eye-to-eye with Jose Mourinho and barely featured in the title-winning 2004-05 campaign, having been hit with a ban after testing positive for cocaine in September 2004.
That kicked off long and bitter legal dispute, which eventually resulted in Mutu being ordered to pay Chelsea £15.2million in compensation after being found in breach of contract.
Despite hitting rock bottom, Mutu rebuilt his career after returning to Italy and enjoyed a decent one-in-two strike rate across five Serie A campaigns with Fiorentina.
Nathan Blake
The former Wales international had a solid career flitting between the top two tiers for the likes of Bolton, Blackburn and Wolves, but it came to a sad end after he was served a six-month ban for a recreational drug in August 2005.
Blake was a free agent at the time, having been released by Leicester City earlier that summer. After serving the ban, he returned to action at non-league Newport County but only played for a couple of months before hanging up his boots.
Abel Xavier
Armstrong was the first Premier League footballer to fail a drugs test, but it was former Liverpool and Everton right-back Xavier who served the first ban for using a performance-enhancing substance.
The distinctive former Portugal international was found guilty of using the anabolic steroid methandrostenolone (AKA dianabol) during his time at Middlesbrough. He’d tested positive for the drug following a UEFA Cup match against Skoda Xanthi in September 2005.
His ban was cut from 18 months down to 12 months on appeal, and he returned to play for Boro in the 2006-07 campaign, but the suspension saw him sidelined for the Smoggies’ memorable run to the UEFA Cup final.
Paddy Kenny
While on holiday in the summer of 2009, shortly after suffering a play-off final defeat to Burnley, Kenny found out that he’d tested positive for ephedrine, a stimulant found in cough medicine he’d taken.
“It all came out that I’d got done for drugs. To this day I still get asked, ‘Were you off your tits?’ But I got done for negligence, that’s the difference,” Kenny told us.
“I got found not guilty for cheating because it was a genuine mistake, but I got done for negligence because I should have known what I was taking, and it was my responsibility. It was a difficult time in my life. Luckily enough, Sheffield United stood by me, which was great of them.”
READ: Paddy Kenny: Setting the record straight on drugs ban & Sheff Utd exit
Kolo Toure
In March 2011, Toure failed a drugs test after he took some of his wife’s water tablets.
He was subsequently banned for six months, which saw him unavailable for Manchester City’s FA Cup final victory over Stoke City. The club also fined him six weeks’ wages.
“It was very, very difficult. I am very careful of my weight. Even now, I weigh myself pretty much every day. I have done that since the start of my career,” Toure explained to the BBC.
“My weight had been up and down a little bit and when you put on two, three or four kilos you are a different player, so I took something to make me go to the toilet more.
“I didn’t know I had done anything wrong. When I found out, I was shocked.”
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