Paul Pogba v. NADO Italia

French footballer Paul Pogba returned a positive test for DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) connected to Juventus's Serie A match against Udinese on 20 August 2023, a game in which he was an unused substitute. He went on to make substitute appearances against Bologna (27 August) and Empoli (3 September) before Italy's national anti-doping organisation (NADO Italia) provisionally suspended him in September 2023; NADO Italia imposed a four-year ban in February 2024, and Pogba appealed to CAS.

CAS partially upheld the appeal. It accepted Pogba's account that he had unknowingly ingested DHEA through a supplement prescribed to him by a doctor in Florida, on assurances that the doctor was experienced with high-level athletes and mindful of anti-doping obligations, and that much of the supporting expert evidence was unopposed by NADO Italia. Notably, Pogba himself had not sought a finding of no fault or negligence at all: he conceded some degree of fault on his own part and asked CAS for a 12-month sanction on that basis. The Panel went further than that request, finding Pogba was not free of fault — as a professional footballer, it held, he should have exercised greater care before taking a substance from a source outside his own club's medical staff — and arrived independently at 18 months, six months longer than what Pogba himself had asked for.

On that basis, CAS reduced the sanction from four years to 18 months, running from 11 September 2023 (his provisional suspension date), and cancelled the accompanying €5,000 fine entirely. A high-profile, closely watched example of a non-specified-substance presumption of intentional use being successfully rebutted on appeal — though the reduction rested on unintentional ingestion, not on a finding that Pogba was free of fault altogether.