Motta tight-lipped on Pogba’s Juve future after doping ban reduction

Thiago Motta refused on Saturday to say whether Paul Pogba had a future at Juventus after the France midfielder’s four-year doping ban was slashed to 18 months.

Pogba, a World Cup winner with Les Bleus in 2018, will be able to return to competitive football from March 11 next year following Friday’s ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Italian media report that Juve might still seek to terminate Pogba’s contract, which runs until the end of June 2026 and is reportedly worth up to 10 million euros ($10.97 million) a season.

“The club will assess the situation and make a decision if necessary. Paul was a great player but he hasn’t played for a long time,” coach Motta told reporters ahead of Sunday’s Serie A fixture with Cagliari.

“All I’m thinking about is our match tomorrow, nothing else really matters as far as I’m concerned.”

Juventus refused to comment on Pogba, who tested positive for testosterone following the Turin club’s opening Serie A fixture of last season, a 3-0 win at Udinese in August 2023.

He was provisionally suspended the following month and then banned for four years by the Italian National Anti-Doping Tribunal in February, a sanction which put the 31-year-old’s career at risk.

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

Pogba collected four Serie A titles in his first stint at Juventus between 2012 and 2016 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.

Since Pogba last played for his club at Empoli in early September last year, Juve have switched manager from Massimiliano Allegri to Motta and brought in a host of new players as part of a rebuild. 

Juve, who finished third last term without Pogba, splashed out over 120 million euros on midfielders Teun Koopmeiners, Douglas Luiz and Khephren Thuram in a busy summer on the transfer market.