Luka’s let go
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Pele
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(left)
THE drugs blunder that saw Kolo Toure banned for six months still haunts his young family.
Toure, 38, recently had to comfort his daughter after a boy at school mocked her before a race by saying: “We’ll have to test you because your dad took drugs.”
He failed a test in 2011 after taking water tablets “which were found to have contained an unspecified banned substance”.
“I was shocked to fail the test,” he said, having been given the tablets by his wife, hence his relatively lenient punishment.
“All I did was take something to make me do more pee-pee.
“At the time it was something I just had to deal with but the thing that hurt a lot more is that my 15-year-old daughter recently came to me and said to me, ‘Dad, you took drugs?’.
“I said to her, ‘No, no, darling, it’s not drugs. In the football world when people say drugs it can just mean something that is banned. It is not cocaine or anything like that’.
“I told her not to worry about it but I felt like I had hurt her a little bit. That’s the bad side of it.”
LUKA JOVIC will be offered to Tottenham and Chelsea this summer after upsetting Real Madrid.
Club bosses are furious with the £50m striker after he left self-isolation to fly home to Serbia.
Jovic was forced to apologise after his country’s prime minister criticised him for breaking strict quarantine rules there.
The 22-year-old will now be offered around when the season is over, with Spurs and the Blues in the market for a front man.
It is understood Real gave the player permission to fly home, despite the club being on lockdown after one of their basketball players tested positive.
But they are angry that he flouted strict 28-day quarantine rules in Serbia for citizens returning from affected countries.
Jovic was reported to police for leaving his flat to go to the chemist.
Serbia PM Ana Brnabic said: “We have the negative example of our football stars who earn millions and have ignored the obligation to self-isolate.”
Jovic said: “I am very sorry that some people did not do their jobs professionally and did not give me instructions on how to behave regarding isolation.”
■ MOUSSA SISSOKO has vowed to be back in action for Spurs when the season resumes.
The midfielder, who had a knee op after a knock at Southampton on New Year’s Day, said: “I’ve been training with the team for nearly two weeks now and everything is okay.”