GENEVA, Oct 5 — French international footballer Paul Pogba yesterday his "nightmare is over” after a four-year ban for doping was reduced to 18 months.

Pogba, who is under contract with Italian giants Juventus until 2026, will be able to return to competitive football from March 11 next year, four days before his 32nd birthday.

"Finally the nightmare is over. I can look forward to the day when I can follow my dreams again,” the player said in a statement released to Britain’s Press Association.

"I always stated that I never knowingly breached World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) regulations when I took a nutritional supplement prescribed to me by a doctor, which does not affect or enhance the performance of male athletes.

"I play with integrity and, although I must accept that this is a strict liability offence, I want to place on record my thanks to the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s judges who heard my explanation.

"This has been a hugely distressing period in my life because everything I have worked so hard for has been put on hold.”

Earlier yesterday, a spokesperson for the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirmed that Pogba’s suspension had been slashed.

"I can confirm the decision: an 18-month suspension with effect from 11 September 2023. The reasons for the decision will follow later,” the CAS spokesperson told AFP.

Pogba tested positive for testosterone in August 2023 after a match between Juventus and Udinese in Italy.

He was provisionally suspended in September of the same year, and then banned for four years by the Italian National Anti-Doping Tribunal the following February.

Pogba’s representatives said the testosterone came from a food supplement prescribed by a doctor he consulted in the United States.

After the ban was announced, Pogba posted on his Instagram account that he had "never knowingly or deliberately” taken doping products.

"I am sad, shocked and heartbroken that everything I have built in my professional playing career has been taken away from me,” he wrote at the time.

On Friday evening, after the CAS ruling, his post was wordless, showing only a close-up of two feet wearing Pogba football boots with socks bearing his initials and decorated with the French flag and the two World Cup stars.

A key figure when France won the 2018 world title in Russia, Pogba collected four Serie A titles in his first stint at Juventus but had a string of problems, on and off the pitch, after his 2022 return from Manchester United.

During the 2022-23 season, Pogba made just 10 appearances for the club, mainly due to a knee injury that also ruled him out of the World Cup in Qatar, where France lost out to Argentina in the final in December 2022.

He was also the victim of a case of organised extortion, for which six men, including his brother Mathias, were last month ordered to stand trial. — AFP