What next for Mudryk and Chelsea?
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The Athletic FC Podcast Network. Welcome to the Athletic FC Podcast with me, Ayo Ekimulere. Chelsea winger Mikhail Modric has tested positive for a banned substance. He has been provisionally suspended. Both club and player have issued statements to make categorically clear that Modric has never knowingly used any banned substances. So where does this leave Chelsea and the £62m man?

Here with us today, we have our Chelsea correspondent, Simon Johnson, as well as senior writer, Adam Crafton. Simon, let's start with you. Mikhailo Mudrik has been provisionally suspended by the FA after he was found to have tested positive for Maldonium following international duty with Ukraine in November. As I mentioned in the intro, both Mudrik and Chelsea have issued statements making it clear the player has never knowingly used any banned substances. Can you just bring us up to speed?

with this whole scenario, Simon? Yeah, so Mudrik is provisionally suspended. That means he can't train or play with Chelsea Football Club. And we are now waiting the results of his B sample. And until the sample and results are known, that's as far as it goes. Mudrik has got his own training programme away from Chelsea Football Club.

But clearly it's a worrying situation. He is, as his statement maintained, he's declaring his innocence. Chelsea are certainly supporting him through this, as both Maraska, the club, and his teammates. But as we've seen with previous cases, the consequences, if this B sample comes back positive, are very severe indeed because Chelsea

even if, as Mudrik has made very clear, he's not knowingly taken any substances, that that is no defence from a ban.

that you are responsible as the strict anti-doping rules dictate. You're responsible for whatever is put in your body. So that is why this is such a big story. Yeah, and what is Maldonium, just to clarify for those listening? It's a drug that is mainly available in Eastern Europe and it helps with endurance and recovery from injury. It was banned, they put on the official ban list in 2016.

And the most famous case of it being used and a sports person being found guilty of using it was Maria Sharapova, who ended up getting a two-year ban reduced to 15 months when she appealed to the Court of...

arbitration for sport so again that just highlights what a severe situation this could potentially be for for mcconnell madrid okay well at the time of recording there has been no comment from the fa about madrid's provisional suspension under regulation 54 it states if a sample delivers an adverse finding an investigation including further testing of a b sample will follow the process will be kept confidential until the point of a charge letter being sent out adam i

I mean, I read this and I was like, wow, this is such an interesting turn of events. What did you make of it when you read about the failed jug test? Well, it's a difficult one in the sense that, you know, I mean, until we have the B sample, you know, it's hard to make a firm judgment. However, you know, the worst case scenario here is that the most expensive footballer that Ukraine has ever produced is

a signing that Chelsea you know committed you know 62 million minimum on you know could go up to far beyond that if he hits certain performance related bonuses both for him and the club you know Chelsea win titles and things like that so would be a huge shock you know what we do know is you know because we among along with other publications were attempting to publish this before it

it came out in the Ukrainian media that his lawyers in the UK managed to delay publication I think it's fair to say and

We're making some pretty forceful arguments. He's hired lawyers that do have a background in challenging anti-doping. So there's no huge surprise in any of that. But it's a huge issue, right? It's a huge issue. I think it's a big issue because when we think about doping, for some reason, you tend to think first about cycling, about track and field, right?

But football, we're kind of a bit naive about it, I think, to be honest. You know, we're a bit, let's not look too far. It seems to be the approach that football takes at times. Even with a lot of these adverse findings, there doesn't always seem to be the... The FA tends to keep it quiet until the point where they really have to go public with it as well. There's reasons for that, but...

So I think it's a shock in the sense of, oh my God, this happens in the football world, but clearly it's never going to be limited just to other sports when there is advantage to be gained. But clearly, as we keep saying, let's wait and see what the B sample says. Yeah.

Yeah, Simon, Chelsea play Shamrock Rovers this evening in the Europa Conference League. All three of Madrid's goals actually have come in that competition. His last game was the 2-0 away win against Heidenheim. What has Enzo Moresca said about this? Because I can imagine all the journalists are hounding him about this particular issue. I must admit, I kind of smiled the moment I walked into the Chelsea press room at Cobham.

on Wednesday afternoon because there are a lot more chairs in the press room that I'd seen at any press conference this season and and also by the time Oreske walked in the room the room was packed now yes partly because um there was a a larger than normal contingent from the away team for the conference league but obviously the it was because of this huge story and

Shamrock Rovers only came up in conversations near the end of the press conference. The vast majority of questions were obviously and inevitably asked about the Madrid situation. Refreshingly, Chelsea didn't put any kind of limits or have covered many high-profile stories over the years with Chelsea. Sometimes a press officer has said, we're not here to talk about it or limited it to a few questions. But no, they were very open and more open

made it very clear. The club, the coaching staff, and all the people that are inside the training ground, we support and we trust Michel. You have to say you'd expect a Chelsea head coach to say he's not going to sit there at the top table and go, well, actually, I have my doubts. Simon, I'm not sure I agree with that. I'm a bit surprised by the kind of bullishness of Chelsea's statement of...

The facts, you know, the head coach is going out there saying, you know, we trust X, Y, Z. I just think it's very difficult to know, surely, right? I mean, they're ultimately just taking...

which, you know, could in a week, two weeks, three weeks, six months time appear very foolish. I understand, you know, you have to act in good faith, but I'm a bit surprised. I would never expect him to sit there and say, God, yeah, he's done X, Y, Z. But I wouldn't have been surprised if he just sat there and said, look, there's been a finding. We'll take, once we have more information, we'll go from there. So,

So it is a choice, isn't it? To really believe what they're being told. Yeah, true. I mean, maybe he did provide the slight caveat of, you know, we trust Misha. And then he sort of said, then we'll see. Maybe that was his little caveat that at the moment, you know, we trust and support him and we're all sad for him.

I mean, Mouraska's been put in a pretty difficult situation there, in fairness, because he's got to support his players. He said that he'd spoken to Mudrik a few days ago about it. But yeah, in terms of what this means as a blow to Chelsea and a blow to their season, I don't think it's a massive one. Because, I mean, yeah, it's a really negative distraction. But this isn't Cole Palmer we're talking about here. This is a guy that is...

essentially as you kind of said his biggest contribution has been in the conference league which is a competition that Chelsea can win without him yeah the rotation sort of side of things he's down a player that he can rotate perhaps bring off the bench to give Jadon Sancho a rest for example but I don't think it's it's terrible for Mudrick if the worst case scenario happens but it's it's not the worst thing for what's happening with Chelsea right now

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Well, Adam, you were embedded with Shakhtar during their Champions League group phase during the autumn of 2022 as part of the Athletics Away From Home series. Have you or have any of the people you spoke to been surprised by, I guess I'm not going to put this politely, well, I guess the lack of impact it's had at Chelsea. It hasn't been, you know, fireworks, has it? No, I mean, I sometimes feel partly responsible for the fireworks.

the fact Chelsea spent about 80 odd million euros to get into the club because we thought, you know, during that autumn, during that Champions League campaign, he was sensational. But that was four or five games, right? The sample size was quite small. And actually, the more I think about the rise of Madrid, the more it was a bit of an accident and almost one of the kind of unintentional consequences of what happened with the war because Chelsea

What happened was Shakhtar's squad before then was full of all these Brazilian players, Israeli, Italian players, I think as well. And they all left because the war broke out. And then all of a sudden, this young Ukrainian player who had been emerging under Roberto de Zerbi, who obviously we know from Brighton subsequently the previous year, but was still very, very, you know, this 20-year-old kid,

still, you know, he was in, he was out, all of a sudden just became like the poster boy of this team and the only real threat they had because all of a sudden, you know, in that Champions League campaign, they had a team, you know, starting 11 against Real Madrid where I think seven of the players raised under 23, 10 of the starting lineup were Ukrainian. I mean, it was like a scratch team and he really stood out in it.

And Shakhtar did a real sales job on it. Every time you'd ask anyone at the club about him, it was... After Bappe, Vinicius, Modric is the best player in this position in Europe. And everyone who wants to buy him, they must give a lot of money to Shakhtar. They must respect our club and our president.

because we know how to sell players. And it was almost like people say something so much, you start to believe it, right? And you're kind of like, you're watching, you're like, I'm not sure he is. But everyone at the club keeps saying it. You know, we knew Arsenal obviously were really interested in him and went for him. The previous summer, I think Brentford had tried and Newcastle and Everton by Leverkusen. So clearly,

A lot of scouts across Europe had been looking at this very popular position at the time of left-sided, inside-forward. And I think that what Shakhtar at the time was saying was, well, look what Jack Greenish has gone for, which was, you know, £100 million. Look at what Jadon Sancho went for when he went to Manchester United, £75 million-odd. And look at what Anthony went for when he went from Ajax to Manchester United. It's all Manchester United's fault, basically. Yeah.

As ever. A little bit of Man City as well. So they were looking at that and saying, well, if this kid's 21 and you're going to have, you know, seven, eight years of him as Chelsea, you know, gave the contract, I think it was seven and a half years with the option of a further year, then that's why they sort of valued him in that way. And, you know, the deal was done in that sense. So I don't think anyone expected him to immediately be sensational at Chelsea, but

He has clearly been very disappointing. What is it? I think five Premier League goals that he scored, probably more yellow cards than he's got goals. I do think, and Simon's a better place than me to talk about this, he also entered a club that was in the midst of total chaos, right? Has gone through, I think we're on what, four managers that he's had? Potter, Lampard, Pochettino, now Maresca,

So, you know, I think that makes it difficult to be fair. But what's been consistent under all of them is he's not shown his best form. Yeah. And I think sometimes it's worth remembering that human aspect of it, Simon, as a young kid coming from a country that's war-torn is also entering an environment that's probably not that stable, probably doesn't speak the language of the country. So, you know, you look at that as a sample of what he's entering and how he's coming into the club.

And then obviously this happens as well, you know, it's not having the best time as a player. I mean, this is yet another obstacle he has to overcome. Yeah, and goes without saying, potentially the biggest obstacle of all. I've always felt a degree of sympathy for him as much as you can for someone that, as always with the football league, the caveat being, well, you know, it's very well paid. But from sort of everything I hear about him, he's

He's not the loudest person in the dressing room. He doesn't speak the language that great. And yes, of course, as much as teammates can, he's been embraced, etc. They'll put an arm around the shoulder, etc. But he's not someone that mixes well. He's been able to mix that great in that dressing room because of the language barrier. He did speak to the official website at the start of the season saying that he'd stepped up his English lessons and he'd started to have better skills

with teammates and getting to know them more. But the reason he's stepping up his English is he was sort of saying it's to be myself, the ability to be myself. And there had been some green shoots. I think Maresca has definitely been showing his coaching ability, not just with Madrid, obviously, but Maresca has been sort of clearly trying to get more out of him. Although he did say after the Panathinaikos match

in which he scored in, he said he's been taking on tactical instruction slower than the other players. And Mariska would often say, I'm Misha, who's Misha? It was almost like, what can I do? He is what he is. But I do have sympathy for him because you sort of think he was very close to joining Arsenal. And if he could turn back the clocks, I think that would have been a better move for him because Arsenal are a more settled club and

The team was more settled. He could have been ingratiated a lot slower. You know, he could have been rotated with Martinelli rather than all the focus on him being this 62 million future Ballon d'Or winner. And he's going to take Chelsea, new Chelsea, back to the old Chelsea of winning trophies and so on. Plus, you'd have had Sinchenko there, his Ukrainian teammate, to help him adapt to life at Arsenal and also life in London. Yeah.

But now, of course, he's going to be isolated, certainly for the time being, even more because he can't even take part in training with his teammates. So I sort of think of the human being at this stage and, of course, his friends and family, as you've already touched upon,

still in a war zone but yeah I do and it came up in the press conference with Maresca that you know we have to worry about the mental side of the game sometimes and not just focus purely on the performance but there's no doubt about it that all the hope and expectation of Modric's arrival when he was resented at half time in the Crystal Palace game January 2023 it's turned out to be false hope

Have the fans backed him a bit more of recent? Have we seen, like, you know, obviously we've seen glimpses of what he can do in the Europa League, Europa Conference League, I should say. Have fans sort of seen something then and gone, actually, we might as well give this kid some confidence because he's clearly lacking in it? Yeah, because he had a good sort of run of form, albeit, again, sort of in the Conference League mainly, over six, eight weeks. He was providing sort of assists and a few goals. I actually wrote a piece after the...

really tough game against FC Now in which he scored the goal of the game but when that goal was scored it was the loudest noise of the whole night. Mudrick running onto it on the edge of the box he'll fancy the shot and he'll score!

I wrote about how sometimes in Chelsea's sort of recent history, they have backed the big money signing no matter what. I always sort of compared it to a bit like Fernando Torres and the remarkable backing that Torres got for a long, long time despite the fact that he was a big money signing.

how disappointing he was. And that was pre-Barcelona semi-final and the goal that everyone remembers him for. I remember he took sort of 12, 13 league games to score his first goal. But the Chelsea fans stood by him. And I've sort of picked up on that, certainly with the match-going fans, that they're just willing him to come good. Now, whether the fan base will stick by him if the B sample comes back,

and he faces a link that will be another sort of test of that relationship but certainly up to now it's not like he's been turned on like some players like Raheem Sterling he's never had the Raheem Sterling treatment where he was getting booed on and booed off come the end This is the Athletic FC podcast with Ayo Akamalera Zygankov Sudakov Mudrik goal goal Mudrika Ibrahimović

Adam, what's it standing in Ukraine? Obviously, Shakhtar made some good money there. But, you know, is he one of those players they thought, yes, he's going to be a world beater?

Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, when they were, if you think of like the future of the national team, I mean, beyond the kind of the obvious threat to the national team, which is, you know, a war, you know, for the next decade, they would have seen him and a few other young players as the heart of that. He's the most expensive player ever. It's been interesting the last few days talking to some people out there, just getting a sense of what the reaction has been. And it's been very defensive of him. You know, you've had,

the chief executive of Shakhtar Donetsk going on Instagram, basically saying, you know, we trust this guy completely. You know, he would never do this is the general gist of it. He doesn't have to do that. Again, you know, we talk about choices here that people who know the person are making, they may look very silly in a few weeks time. They may also look very smart and very loyal. We wrote on Tuesday how people

You know, we've been told by several people that one of the things that appears to be circulating from around Mudrick is this idea that there may have been a sabotage around when he was at the national team. Now, that's about as much as we're able to say at this point. I mean, that would be, you know, a truly extraordinary story. We've not had any evidence ourselves to support this other than the fact that

we know that people are saying it to us. That doesn't mean it's true. We just know it's something that is circulating at the moment in Ukraine. So there is clearly a defensiveness towards him in the country. I think it'd be very damaging for Ukrainian football in general, you know, to be like England losing Jude Bellingham or Cole Palmer, you know, Harry Kane, you know, you're losing your star player,

So yeah, I mean, from a Ukrainian point of view, it would be pretty disastrous. But it would also be completely disastrous for Chelsea, right? This would be a very, very expensive player that they could be without for a very long time. I think Chelsea's position is probably they support him until they don't, right? It's a bit like when

you know prime ministers are under threat and they cabinet member says they've got you know the prime minister's got my full support and then all of a sudden all of a sudden one morning they don't i mean the other interesting thing simon is the length of the contract right he could

How far into it are we? What, two years almost? Yeah, the two years. So he's got another almost six and a half years? Yeah, I mean, he signed up to seven and a half years and with the option for another 12 months. So he turns, I think, 24 in January. So...

Chelsea always argued that one of the reasons they did long contracts is to give peace of mind to players. If they suffered a serious injury, for example, they wouldn't have to worry about their future. But I don't think they brought the contract in mind in view of a situation like this.

Now Chelsea do have history of being, and this is the old Chelsea, the previous regime, have history of being very ruthless. Adrian Muto and Mark Bosnich were both

were both sacked, but they took recreational drugs and were found guilty of taking cocaine. So that was a slightly different scenario, but there's definitely a precedent there. But whether Chelsea will take that harsh action again, it's something we...

a discussion for later on depending on the B sample. For sure. Well, Simon, you know, what impression do you have of how the club may deal with any ban that Mudrick could potentially face? It's a little bit premature at the moment. They're sort of, you know, it's all defend, defend, defend.

But what I was going to suggest, the length of contract does sort of, if you take the Paul Pogba sort of scenario, where he was given a four-year ban, which on appeal, he got reduced to 18 months. If Modric is banned, say if he serves an 18-month ban from now, that takes him to the summer of 26. He's still got four years left on his contract.

So, it's very hard to say what Chelsea will do. I don't know what Adam was just saying then, but he was still potentially, he's got a long time to then rebuild his career, perhaps get some value, and perhaps be sellable. What Chelsea do in terms of the transfer scenario, because they're a man down.

Maresca spoke in his press conference saying the conversation will be had after the final Premier League game of the calendar year against Ipswich that they might sit down and figure out if a replacement is needed. But I think we have to bear in mind that, again, as I talked at the top, Ludwig is not this sort of first XI. Chelsea have two very exciting teenagers arriving in the summer.

that they've already signed in Esteval Willian and Kendrick Paez. They've got Neto, Sancho and Madweki. They've got an academy player that they really rate highly in Tyreek George. They've also, Maresca's also sort of used

And Kunku, I think he is a winger in the slices, but he's played him out there. He's played Raul Felix as a sort of left 10. So without ruling it out, I don't think Chelsea have to panic here. It's not sort of trying to replace indispensable. You're just trying to replace a squad player. And, uh,

Yeah, never say never with Chelsea, but I don't think it's, I almost feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot here, but I don't imagine a sort of £62 million signing in January to sort of cope with this situation. Adam, Simon mentioned Pogba and it's just got me thinking, you know, his ban was reduced, but also should footballers not just

think a bit more about what they're putting in their bodies. I mean, you've got all these physios, you've got all these medical stuff around you. Before you take something, even if it might be cough syrup, surely someone just goes, just look at the label first, mate. Yeah, I mean, completely. And I wonder sometimes, actually, and to be clear here, I'm talking very, very generally, but

whether footballers really know what they're putting in their bodies because actually often it is prepared it's stuff that is prepared by I mean you have to if you just strip it back footballers have everything done for them right and

When they move to a club, where they live, have their car, what they're going to eat, they have a private chef. Everything is almost done for them now. They have about 15 personal trainers. They have advisors. Some of them have... I mean, I remember going to Neymar's unveiling press conference at PSG about eight years ago. Half the press conference room was taken up by his entourage. It was extraordinary. So...

you are into the world where some of these players are like small businesses or large businesses, depending on the player. So yeah, for sure, there is a question of knowledge and accountability and responsibility. I've been around club training grounds and in the canteens, and there will be a table of just players

every possible supplement that you could possibly imagine. Now, they would all have been checked by the clubs, but each player has one that's being devised by the sports science team and the physios that's appropriate for their training load based on what they're eating for lunch and what they're going to eat for dinner. When you say the players need to be more careful, yes, they do, because Paul Pogba at the moment, he's fighting that battle by himself. I don't think he's a Juventus player now, is he?

So when the proverbial hits the fan, players often find themselves on their own. Just because someone at a club says do it doesn't mean it's automatically right. So if it's a club or if it's a personal trainer or whatever it is, the players still have to be very, very careful and very aware and be going to a doctor and saying, can I just check with you?

that this isn't on a certain list or whatever. Now, to be clear, with the Mudrick case, he is insisting he's never knowingly taken any substances that have been banned. But no, definitely, it's something players, you know, their lives, careers, reputations depend on it. You know, even if... I think it would be really interesting to see, in that hypothetical, if he is banned, what Simon says about the length of contract...

to Chelsea just say, you know, I can't imagine it would be that difficult for them to relieve him, right? If he's found guilty of taking banned substances, you know, it seems like a pretty cut and dry case where you'd be able to let a player go. But as Simon says, with the length of contract, do you actually take the view, well, in 18 months we could have him back. We do this fight, we get it reduced to a year, it could be reduced even shorter than that.

Who knows? So I think it's going to be a really interesting case to see what the defense is, if there needs to be a defense, and how the club handles it, how the player handles it, how other clubs handle it, if he becomes available as well, you know, and how brands that endorse him deal with it as well. Yeah, no doubt. We'll still return to this story once we find out the results of that B sample. Simon, Adam, really thank you

for joining us and also thank you all for listening Michael Bailey will be with you tomorrow with a preview ahead of Liverpool's visit to Tottenham Hotspur you've been listening to the Athletic FC podcast the producers were Guy Clark Mike Stavrou and Jay Beale the executive producer was Aidy Moorhead to listen to other great athletic podcasts for free search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places The Athletic FC podcast is an Athletic Media Company production The Athletic FC Podcast Network

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