Nasri blow in fight against doping ban
SAMIR NASRI is facing the prospect of a four-year doping ban after an appeal from the former Manchester City player was rejected.
UEFA officials opened an inquiry into the French midfielder following a bizarre incident in December 2016, when he appeared to use an intravenous drip at a Los Angeles clinic.
It has now emerged the player, currently with Turkish side Antalyaspor, requested that UEFA grant him a backdated therapeutic use exemption (TUE), which would have allowed him to escape punishment.
That request was refused but Nasri appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). That appeal has now been rejected, meaning the original UEFA probe — which could see 30-year-old Nasri hit with a four-year ban which would in all likelihood end his career at the highest level — has restarted.
Nasri was on loan at Spanish side Sevilla from City and earning £120,000 a week when he paid a visit to LA intravenous therapy clinic Drip Doctors.
The clinic tweeted a picture of Nasri with a caption claiming they had provided him with ‘an IV drip to keep him hydrated and in top health during his busy soccer season with Sevilla’. Such treatments are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency unless administered in quantities of no more than 50 millilitres per six-hour period, or when a certificate of special dispensation on medical grounds has been obtained. Nasri would have needed a TUE to legitimately use the treatment.
When Nasri moved to Antalyaspor last summer, Sportsmail revealed that the threat of a ban hanging over him prompted City to let him go for free, without taking a penny for a player who cost them £24million from Arsenal in 2011.
Instead, they accepted a host of add-ons and a sell-on clause to get the former France international out of the Etihad Stadium.