Paul Pogba’s catastrophic year has not escaped football fans and the French public in general. The Juventus player has been named ‘disappointment of the year 2023’.
Paul Pogba has moved a little further away from football. Already largely absent from the field for several seasons due to a physique that has become very fragile, the French midfielder tested positive for testosterone on August 20. While he intended to get back on track after having also experienced extra-sporting setbacks, the Frenchman will ultimately only have played fifty-two minutes with his club and is not expected to add any more for a long time. The situation of “La Pioche” did not escape the public, whether football enthusiasts or not. A poll proved this decisively.
This Sunday, The Parisian mentioned the sports barometer of the polling institute Odoxa. While Antoine Dupont was, for example, named sportsman of the year 2023, ahead of Kylian Mbappé, Paul Pogba was entitled to a much less enviable distinction. The 2018 world champion thus won the title of “disappointment of the year”. It is the French people in general interviewed in this barometer who made this decision. For sports fans, on the other hand, the biggest disappointment of the year which is ending was the premature exit of the French XV, which went out in the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup.
Judgment to come
As for Paul Pogba, he will very soon have to defend his own case before the anti-doping court. It should be next January 18 in Rome. He risks a maximum suspension of four years, but could get away with only a few months, if his defense manages to find the right arguments and convince the court that there was no intentionality of doping.
