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Analysis
- 52 minutes ago
Mykhailo Mudryk: Chelsea star preparing for career change amid doping ban
Robin Bairner
- 20 Sept 2025 08:40 BST
- 4 min read
News
Chelsea attacker Mykhailo Mudryk is considering quitting football to pursue another career after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug.
Mudryk has been sidelined since November 2024 after failing a doping test while on international duty with Ukraine. He has been provisionally suspended following “an adverse finding in a routine urine test”.
The 24-year-old is waiting on the outcome of a ‘B’ sample. Should this prove positive, Mudryk could face a four-year suspension.
Current ETV
Mykhaylo Mudryk
M, AM (L)
Chelsea
Mykhaylo Mudryk
M, AM (L)
Chelsea
ETV Range
€34M - €41.6M
Amidst this drama, Mudryk is considering a radical change of career. According to Marca, the winger has made it his goal to compete at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics in the sprinting events for Ukraine.
Chelsea signed him for €70 million from Shakhtar Donetsk, and while he has impressed with his speed, he was less impressive with his output in terms of goals and assists. In 73 appearances for the Blues, he has offered 10 strikes and 11 decisive passes. This led some critics to joke that he would be better off as a sprinter – yet few expected him to take these jibes seriously.
He clocked a top speed of 36.67km/h on his Chelsea debut and now wants to try his hand at track and field.
The Spanish paper reports: “Away from the Premier League's media spotlight, Mudryk is training with the national sprint team, under the tutelage of former Olympians. In a country with a long tradition of athletics, Mudryk's physical potential has not gone unnoticed.”
Does Mudryk’s ban apply to athletics?
Unfortunately for Mudryk, if he is found to have breached doping regulations in football, any sanctions that he suffers will have cross-sport enforcement. That means that if he were to be handed a four-year ban for his current case, he is automatically prevented from participating in any sport that has signed up to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code.
In other words: he could not compete at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics if he gets an adverse result in his current case.
Mudryk continues to protest his innocence, with Shakhar director Dario Srna telling the BBC earlier this week: “We know he is 100 per cent innocent - he will show that. We support him like an ex-player, a human being and a friend. We don't think the money is important.”
It has been claimed that he was inadvertently injected with stem cells from a cow that had been exposed to the banned substance.
Even if the Chelsea star really does want to quit football and move to sprinting full-time, the outcome of the doping case will have a pivotal impact on his life.
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