Mudryk doping ban overturned: Chelsea winger cleared to play again as Alonso promises full backing

Mykhailo Mudryk’s long exile is over. The Chelsea winger’s four-year doping ban has been overturned, and Xabi Alonso has promised the Ukrainian a genuine second chance at Stamford Bridge. The Football Association confirmed at the end of last week that the disciplinary proceedings hanging over the 25-year-old — in place since a positive test in December 2024 — had been wrapped up in concert with the World Anti-Doping Agency, clearing him to return to competition with immediate effect.

It brings down the curtain on an ordeal that consumed nearly two years of the wideman’s career — and his first-team life at Chelsea. Mudryk has not featured in a competitive match for the Blues since November 2024. The FA formally charged him with anti-doping violations in June 2025; he carried his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport back in February 2026, and in May the independent body confirmed written submissions had been exchanged and a hearing arranged. That four-year suspension has now been quashed.

The rule change that set him free

The decisive factor, it is understood, was a shift in WADA’s scientific reporting standards. In its statement, the FA acknowledged that if his sample had been assessed against today’s technical criteria, neither a suspension nor any anti-doping violation would have been recorded. Throughout the process, the player maintained he had unknowingly taken a prohibited substance — the test that triggered the case detected meldonium — and sources at Stamford Bridge indicate the club backed him all the way.

That support extends to the new man in the dugout. Speaking to reporters in Sydney, where Chelsea have been winding down their pre-season tour, Alonso made plain that the door at Cobham is open. He said the club were delighted for a player they felt had endured more than most could comprehend, and stressed that everyone wanted him back in the fold. There would be no rushing, Alonso cautioned: time was needed for fitness and rhythm to return, but once things had settled, movement would follow. The Basque coach, who studied the winger’s game in the Bundesliga, recalled watching Mudryk at Shakhtar Donetsk, the impact he made, his strength in one-on-one situations and his gift for conjuring chances from nothing, and called the scale of what the player had endured massive.

Suitors already circling

The interest, though, is not confined to west London. Reports citing The Sun suggest clubs have made contact with Chelsea over the winger — “a number of sides”, in the tabloid’s phrase, three of them from the Premier League. Coventry City, now managed by Frank Lampard, are named among the suitors, a reunion made plausible by history: Mudryk made eight appearances, with a single assist, during Lampard’s second spell in charge.

Mudryk has been told every avenue remains open: a place in Alonso’s squad, a loan or a permanent sale. The route back into the team will not be straightforward, with Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers and Pedro Neto already competing for the wide berths, but the man Chelsea signed from Shakhtar in January 2023 for an initial £62m, with a further £27m in add-ons, has rarely lacked for self-belief.

The immediate task is simpler. He is due in Hong Kong to rejoin the group ahead of Wednesday’s friendly with Juventus, with time to settle back into training before any decision on his future. After two years of training alone, waiting on lawyers and lab reports, Mudryk finally has his boots back on the grass. At 25, with his pace intact and a point to prove, the coming season may yet offer the second chapter his £89m price tag always promised.

Based on reporting by TeamTalk and the Daily Mirror. Read the original reports in full here: the TeamTalk story on the Premier League interest in Mudryk and the Mirror’s account of Alonso’s verdict on the winger.