Croatian football player Vuskovic’s doping ban doubled to 4 years

FILE – Hamburger SV football player Mario Vuskovic reacts after taking his seat for the third hearing before the Sports Court of the German Football Association, in Frankfurt, Germany, March 17, 2023. (Arne Dedert/dpa via AP, File)

BONN, Germany — Croatia Under-21 football player Mario Vušković had his ban for doping doubled to four years on Tuesday in a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The German national anti-doping agency said it won an appeal jointly filed with the World Anti-Doping Agency to extend a two-year ban originally imposed by the German football federation on the Hamburger SV player who had tested positive for EPO.

At the football federation’s original tribunal last year, its judge suggested Vušković should get a less-harsh sanction than four years because he was younger and would lose out financially.

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Vušković, a defender for second-tier HSV, is now banned from football through Nov. 15, 2026. He will turn 25 the next day.

The club said in a statement that Vušković and his lawyers will study the CAS verdict before it has talks with the player about taking the next steps. The club did not state when his contract expires.

Vušković tested positive in September 2022 for the blood-boosting hormone banned in sports that has been popular with endurance athletes in cycling and distance running. The sample was taken in “an out-of-competition doping control at the training grounds of his club,” CAS said in a statement.

The German football federation tribunal ruled in March 2023 that a two-year ban was appropriate also because evidence did not point to the player being involved in a “structured” doping program.

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WADA and its German affiliate appealed to CAS seeking a full four-year ban, which is allowed for in the anti-doping regulations of world football body Fifa.

A two-day hearing held in May was unusual for a case at sports’ highest court in being filmed and later broadcast in full.

CAS said its judges ruled that Vušković “did not submit any mitigating factors that could be taken into account to reduce the four-year period of ineligibility.”

Vušković first moved to 1983 European Cup winner Hamburg in 2021 from Hajduk Split after playing for Croatia at the Under-21 European Championship. Croatia lost in the quarterfinals to Spain.