After his four-year doping penalty was reduced to 18 months last week, French star Paul Pogba declared on Monday that he was eager to play football again.
“Football is the strawberry cake that was taken out of my mouth,” Pogba told L’Equipe television in an interview from the Parc des Princes Stadium in Paris.
Four days before his 32nd birthday, on March 11 of next year, Pogba, who has a deal with Italian giant Juventus through 2026, will be able to resume playing competitive football.
Capped 91 times for France, Pogba tested positive for testosterone in August 2023 after a match between Juventus and Udinese in Italy.
He was provisionally suspended in September of the same year, and then banned for four years by the Italian National Anti-Doping Tribunal the following February.
Pogba’s representatives said the testosterone came from a food supplement prescribed by a doctor he consulted in the United States.
At the beginning of October, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reduced this sanction to 18 months.
“The nightmare is over,” said Pogba, adding he was “really looking forward to coming back”.
Asked about a possible arrival in Ligue 1, Pogba, who has never played in the French league during his senior career, responded: “why not?”
A key figure when France won the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Pogba collected four Serie A titles in his first stint at Juventus but had a string of problems, on and off the pitch, after his 2022 return from Manchester United.
He was also the victim of an alleged organised extortion, for which six men, including his brother Mathias, were last month ordered to stand trial.
