One of the leading African football teams, Ivory Coast, got a jolt after its goalkeeper Sylvain Gbohouo was handed a 18-month ban after testing positive for a prohibited substance, FIFA announced on Monday.
The 33-year-old returned a positive test for trimetazidine, a drug banned because it can boost endurance, after a 2022 World Cup qualifying defeat to Cameroon on November 16.
Gbohouo, winner of the African Cup of Nations in 2015, had been provisionally suspended by his national federation in January.
According to FIFA's disciplinary decision seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP), Gbohouo explained he took the substance unintentionally after being prescribed a drug to treat vision problems by an ophthalmologist.
The objective was "to improve his retinal blood flow," explained the 65-time international, who "stopped the treatment himself after a month and a half" because it had not improved the problem.
Although the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) hands, in principle, a four-year suspension for a positive test, FIFA's disciplinary commission considered he had "unintentionally" consumed the prohibited substance and had not committed a "significant" fault, reducing the sanction to 18 months from Dec. 23, 2021. Gbohouo can return to play on June 23, 2023.
