Mykhailo Mudryk Is Back. Now Football Has to Answer What It Owes Players When the System Gets It Wrong

Mykhailo Mudryk has returned to football after 20 months away.

The Chelsea winger came on in the 82nd minute of a 1-0 defeat to Juventus in Hong Kong on 5 August. It was his first appearance since November 2024, when he played against Heidenheim in the Conference League.

Five days before the Juventus game, the Football Association confirmed that Mudryk was free to return after his anti-doping case was resolved.

After 20 months on the sidelines, Mykhailo Mudryk is finally back on the pitch 🔙

But the comeback was spoiled as Chelsea suffer a 1-0 pre-season defeat to Juventus in Hong Kong ❌ pic.twitter.com/g3JyelzMOP

— GOAL (@goal) August 6, 2026

Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso called the return emotional. He said the priority was to help Mudryk feel part of the team again after spending so long away from normal team football. 

For Mudryk, getting back on the pitch is important. But it does not give him back the 20 months he lost.

That is the bigger issue his case raises for football.

Mudryk was provisionally suspended in December 2024 after an anti-doping test found a low concentration of meldonium in his sample. An independent FA commission later found that he had committed the anti-doping rule violations and imposed a four-year ban. Mudryk appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The case was eventually resolved through an agreement between Mudryk, the FA and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

There is an important detail in that agreement. Mudryk accepted that he had committed the anti-doping rule violations. He also accepted a period of ineligibility equal to the time he had already served.

But the FA said changes to WADA’s technical reporting requirements had changed the position. Under the new requirements, the concentration of meldonium found in Mudryk’s sample would not have been reported as an adverse finding if the same sample had been collected under those rules. 

Mudryk was therefore allowed to return immediately.

The question is what happens to the career he lost while the case was being investigated and decided.

A Ban Can Change a Career

Chelsea signed Mudryk from Shakhtar Donetsk in January 2023 for an initial £62 million, with the deal potentially rising to about £89 million through add-ons. He signed an eight-and-a-half-year contract.

He was 23 when he made his final appearance before the suspension. He is now 25.

Mudryk has returned to a Chelsea squad that is not the same squad he left.

He also has to rebuild his match fitness and rhythm. During his absence, he could train and keep himself in shape, but he could not replace the experience of playing competitive matches every week.

That is what a suspension can take from a player.

It can cost wages and bonuses. It can affect sponsorships and transfer value. It can remove a player from the plans of a manager who may have wanted to use him. For a young player, months without matches can also mean lost development.

A disciplinary decision can measure the length of a ban. It cannot measure everything that happens to a football career during that time.

Mudryk Was Not Exonerated

Mudryk’s case also needs to be described carefully. He was not declared innocent.

The FA’s independent commission found that he had committed the anti-doping rule violations. The agreement that ended his case did not overturn that finding. Instead, the FA, Mudryk and WADA agreed to resolve the appeal under Article 10.8.2 of the World Anti-Doping Code and Regulation 90 of the 2024 Anti-Doping Regulations.

That rule allows an anti-doping organisation, an athlete and WADA to agree on a case resolution after an athlete admits an anti-doping rule violation. The rule can allow the period of ineligibility to be reduced and can also change when the period starts, subject to its conditions.

Mudryk’s agreement meant that he served no further period beyond the time he had already spent out of football.

At the same time, the FA made clear that the concentration found in his sample would not have produced an adverse finding under the newer technical requirements.

So Mudryk is not the player who deliberately cheated and served the full four-year ban. He is also not the player a tribunal fully exonerated.

His case sits between those two positions. That is exactly where the debate becomes difficult.

The System Needs Rules. Players Need Protection Too

Football cannot weaken anti-doping rules simply because a suspension can damage a player’s career.

The basic principle is important. Players are responsible for what enters their bodies, and anti-doping rules exist to protect clean competition. The World Anti-Doping Code is built around that responsibility.

Without strong rules, every positive test could become a long argument about intent, mistakes or circumstances.

But strict rules do not remove the need for a fair process.

The WADA Athletes’ Anti-Doping Rights Act recognises that athletes have rights within the system. It includes rights relating to fair and timely hearings, medical treatment, education, data protection, B-sample analysis and compensation. The Act is based on the 2021 Code and its related standards.

But there is a difference between having a right to compensation in the anti-doping system and having a clear system that restores a player’s lost career time.

A player should not receive a large payout simply because a ban was reduced on appeal. A reduced sanction does not automatically mean that the original investigation was wrong or that somebody acted improperly.

But there is a stronger case when an athlete loses a significant part of a career because of a serious error, a laboratory problem, a procedural failure or another problem that later changes the basis of the case.

That is where football needs a better answer.

Sakho Shows What Compensation Can Look Like

Mamadou Sakho’s case provides an important example.

In 2016, the former Liverpool defender was suspended after UEFA’s anti-doping process found an issue involving higenamine. UEFA ultimately found that he had not committed an anti-doping violation.

The dispute did not end there. Sakho later brought a defamation claim against WADA over statements made about him during the dispute.

In 2020, WADA retracted the statements and apologised. It accepted that Sakho had not breached UEFA’s anti-doping regulations, had not cheated, had not intended to gain an advantage and had acted in good faith. WADA also agreed to pay him a substantial sum in damages and cover his reasonable legal costs.

That is important, but Sakho’s case should not be presented as a general compensation model for every anti-doping suspension.

His payment followed a specific legal dispute over defamatory statements.

It was not a standard football payment for the time he lost while an anti-doping case was being investigated.

That is precisely why football still has a gap.

Onana Lost Months Even After His Ban Was Reduced

André Onana’s case shows the problem from another angle.

In 2021, the Cameroon goalkeeper received a 12-month UEFA ban after testing positive for furosemide. Onana said he had accidentally taken his wife’s medication after mistaking it for aspirin.

CAS reduced the suspension to nine months. The court found that Onana had no significant fault because he had taken medication intended for another person by mistake. But CAS still decided that a nine-month ban was proportionate to his negligence.

Onana therefore won part of his appeal. He still lost nine months of football.

There was no automatic payment for the three months removed from the original punishment. There was also no separate payment simply because the case had disrupted his career.

That is not an argument that Onana should have received money.

It is an example of how the current system works: the main question is how long an athlete should be banned, not how the athlete should be supported after months away from the game.

The Cost Is Not the Same for Every Player

This is where the debate becomes bigger than Mudryk.

A Chelsea player has access to lawyers, doctors, agents and a club structure that can help him navigate a complicated case.

Many footballers do not have that level of support.

WADA’s Athletes’ Anti-Doping Rights Act includes a recommended right to legal aid, although the document itself makes clear that it is not a legal document that creates every legal remedy.

That matters because anti-doping cases can involve technical rules that are difficult for players to understand.

A player may have to deal with laboratory results, prohibited substances, reporting limits, medical records and appeal procedures. The longer the case lasts, the longer the player can remain outside normal football.

The question is therefore not whether players should be allowed to escape anti-doping rules.

The question is whether a player who suffers serious career damage because of a failure in the process has any meaningful way to recover from it.

Football Should Build a Limited Compensation System

Football does not need to create a system that pays every player whose ban is reduced.

That would be difficult to justify and could create a new problem. Anti-doping bodies could face financial claims simply because an athlete successfully challenged part of a decision.

Football could create a limited compensation and support framework for cases where an athlete’s sanction is overturned or materially changed because of a serious procedural error, laboratory problem or other failure outside the player’s control.

The framework could also provide legal and career support while cases are being decided.

The aim would not be to reward athletes for challenging sanctions. It would be to recognise that the damage caused by a long suspension cannot always be repaired by simply reducing the number of months on a disciplinary document.

A player who deliberately breaks the rules should face the consequences.

A player whose case collapses because the process was seriously flawed should not necessarily be left to carry every cost alone.

The two situations are different, and the system should be able to treat them differently.

Mudryk’s Return Is Only the Beginning

Mudryk’s first appearance back for Chelsea lasted only a few minutes.

That is how football works. His ban ended, but his old position at the club did not automatically return with it.

He now has to rebuild his place in the squad. He has to regain the rhythm of competitive football. He has to convince Alonso that he deserves to play.

None of that can be restored by a legal agreement.

That is the lesson football should take from Mudryk’s case.

Football has a system for punishing players. It has detailed rules for testing, hearings, appeals and bans. What it does not yet have is an equally clear system for restoring what a player loses when an anti-doping case goes badly wrong.

Mudryk is back on the pitch. But returning a player to football is not the same as returning the career he lost.

Football has the machinery to sanction. It now needs better machinery to repair.