Crystal Palace defender Mamadou Sakho has won "substantial" damages from the World Anti-Doping Agency over allegations that he had taken banned performance-enhancing drugs.
The former Liverpool defender was briefly suspended in 2016 after he tested positive for a fat-burning substance called higenamine after a Europa League game against Manchester United in March that year.
Sakho missed the Reds' Europa League final against Sevilla and, he also alleged, a place in France's Euro 2016 squad as a result of his suspension.
The 30-year old was ultimately cleared in July 2016 by Uefa’s disciplinary body, which found that higenamine was not on Wada’s banned list and the agency's own laboratories were unsure about its status.
The World Anti-Doping Agency on Monday banned Russia from global sporting events after accusing Moscow of falsifying data from an anti-doping laboratory
Posted by Sports Tribune on Monday, 9 December 2019
Wada later issued two statements, to the Daily Telegraph in August 2016 and to the Guardian in April 2017, which said Sakho was guilty of taking a prohibited performance-enhancing drug.
Sakho, who joined Palace in 2017, sued Wada for defamation and, at a High Court hearing in London Wednesday, accepted an apology from the agency and an undisclosed sum in damages.
His barrister, Julian Santos, said the defamatory allegations "were republished by a very large number of media organisations to many millions of readers, causing very serious harm to Sakho's reputation".
