Featured Image Credit: Photo by FREDERIC DIDES/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Football, Ligue 1, Monaco, Paul Pogba, Rio Ferdinand, Samir Nasri
Ben McAleer
Topics: Football, Ligue 1, Monaco, Paul Pogba, Rio Ferdinand, Samir Nasri
Paul Pogba has been unveiled as a Monaco player and supporters hope to see the former Manchester United man back on the pitch sooner rather than later.
The 32-year-old has been without a club since being released by Juventus last November.
Reports suggested that Pogba would move to MLS, while a return to United was also mooted.
However, Pogba has since joined Monaco, who have also signed Eric Dier and Ansu Fati from Bayern Munich and Barcelona, respectively.
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And while fans would hope to see Pogba in action for the 2025/26 Ligue 1 opener, where Monaco play his former side Le Havre, the club’s General Director suggested that they’d have to wait a little longer before the former France international takes to the Stade Louis II pitch.
“I can guarantee that he won’t be on the pitch against Le Havre. We are here to be realistic,” Monaco General Director Thiago Scuro is quoted as saying by Get French Football News.
“We expect a three-month process. High-level sport is a lot about science and it is not easy. Monaco is one of the most intense teams in Ligue 1 and play a style that requires him to be fit."
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With an October return more realistic, supporters will have pinpointed the Derby de la Cote d'Azur at the start of the month, where Monaco host south coast rivals Nice, as a potential fixture to see Pogba in action.
Monaco welcome defending Ligue 1 and European champions PSG in November before travelling to Paris for the return fixture in March next year.
Pogba isn’t the first former United player to have been suspended owing to doping infringements.
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Centre-back Rio Ferdinand failed to attend a drugs test at United’s training ground in September 2003, a test he’d late take and pass.
However, the FA Disciplinary Committee would go on to impose an eight-month ban from January 2004 and hand Ferdinand a £50,000 fine.
The suspension, which United appealed, saw Ferdinand sit out the remainder of the 2004/05 season and forced to miss Euro 2004, which England would go on to lose to Portugal on penalties at the quarter-final stage.
More recently, Pogba’s compatriot Samir Nasri was given a six-month ban by UEFA in February 2018 for breaching WADA rules in December 2016, which prompted the infamous Drip Doctors saga on X, then Twitter.
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Chelsea winger Mykhailo Mudryk, meanwhile, is currently banned for four years after being charged by the FA for violating anti-doping rules last month.
The Ukrainian winger was notified of a positive drugs test by the FA last December, while Chelsea have since stripped the former Shakhtar winger of his number 10 shirt and handed it to Cole Palmer.