Manchester City defender Kolo Toure was giving a six month ban for failing a drug test in February, which means that he will be back playing in September.
Toure failed the drug test after the Manchester derby in February and we has suspended in early March. Toure claimed that he failed the test because of a banned substance contained in a diet pill he was given by his wife.
Toure admitted the offence at an FA hearing in London on Thursday but asked for the accidental nature of his actions to be taken into consideration. The FA commission also heard written character references from City manager Roberto Mancini and Toure’s former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger.
The FA confirmed Toure had taken a water tablet not knowing it contained a banned substance but added that the player’s efforts to determine the exact make-up of the pills had been inadequate.
An FA statement said:
“He was at fault in the limited and perfunctory efforts he made in relation to the water tablets; the checks he made in relation to those tablets were inadequate and fell some way below what it would be reasonable to expect of a professional footballer in these circumstances.”
So a couple of things about this sentence confuse me. One is that almost half of Toure’s sentence covers the summer break, which in essence makes this a three month sentence. Why is that? If they FA wanted to give Toure a six month ban, why not ban him for March, April May, August, September and October when Man City are playing?
What I don’t understand is why Toure was shown such leniency while Paddy Kenny of Sheffield United was giving a 9 month ban after taking cough medicine that had a banned substance in it?
I am sure that Toure’s slap on the wrist had not nothing to do with the fact that the Chairman of the FA is David Bernstein, who was previously the chairman of Manchester City.
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