Mykhailo Mudryk has taken his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport after a routine drugs test in late 2024 detected meldonium. The Chelsea winger confirmed in December 2024 that he had tested positive but fervently denied doing so intentionally and vowed to fight the case. Chelsea have offered public support to the player throughout.<\/p>\n
The legal process has moved slowly in public view. It emerged in early April that Chelsea had registered an “updated contract” for the 25-year-old, the details of which were not disclosed. Mudryk joined Stamford Bridge in January 2023 in a deal reported as worth up to $108 million (\u00a388.5 million) if all add-ons are triggered.<\/p>\n
Sergei Palkin, director of Mudryk\u2019s former employers Shakhtar Donetsk, underlined the commercial stakes. “We have \u20ac30 million of bonuses in his contract,” Sergei Palkin, director of Mudryk\u2019s former employers Shakhtar Donetsk, told Ben Jacobs . “If he\u2019s not playing, or Chelsea aren\u2019t reaching results, we are losing \u20ac30 million. That\u2019s a big financial impact for us.”<\/p>\n
If found guilty the winger faced a ban of up to four years. According to Ben Jacobs, the English Football Association have settled on the maximum punishment. Four-year bans are relatively standard for a failed doping test; Paul Pogba received the same sanction in February 2024 but successfully appealed to CAS and had his suspension reduced to 18 months.<\/p>\n
Mudryk has formally appealed and CAS has confirmed receipt. “CAS confirms it has received an appeal by Mykhailo Mudryk against the FA, filed on 25 February 2026,” a statement read. “The Parties are currently exchanging written submissions, and a hearing is yet to be scheduled.”<\/p>\n
Any eventual suspension is expected to include the 16 months Mudryk has already spent on the sidelines. If he can show a lack of malice, a reduction toward the 18-month mark would likely allow an immediate return. Chelsea will await the CAS verdict before deciding their next steps. Mudryk remains contracted to Chelsea until 2031; if he served the full four-year term, with the current suspension factored in, the latest return date would be December 2028. The broader question is whether there remains a long-term future at Chelsea for the player regardless of the outcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mudryk has appealed to CAS over a meldonium positive; Chelsea support him as the process continues..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1383],"tags":[1618,1617],"class_list":["post-13389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-chelsea-news","tag-cas-appeal","tag-mudryk-doping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}