Mykhailo Mudryk, who Chelsea signed from Shakhtar Donetsk for an initial £62m, plus a further £27m in bonuses, in January 2023, hasn’t played for the Blues in nearly 18 months.
Simon Jordan reckons Mykhailo Mudryk could be available for selection before the end of the year. Earlier this week, football.london reported that the Chelsea winger had filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport after receiving a four-year doping ban by the Football Association.
Mudryk was provisionally suspended in December 2024 after testing positive for a banned substance called meldonium, which was administered abroad while away on international duty. The 25-year-old was officially charged by the FA with anti-doping violations in June 2025 before filling an appeal with CAS in February 2026.
In an official statement released on Wednesday, the CAS confirmed that ‘written submissions’ have been exchanged and a hearing is set to be scheduled. Meanwhile, football.london understands that Chelsea will let the process take it’s full course.
Reacting to the news on eSPORTY, Jordan tipped Mudryk to be back on the pitch before the end of the year. The former Crystal Palace owner also backed BluesCo to eventually cash in on the Ukraine international, whom they signed from Shakhtar Donetsk for an initial £62million, plus a further £27m in bonuses, in January 2023.
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Jordan said: “If you can tap dance your way around legislation as Conor Benn did and other fighters have done, it will be almost unbelievable to think that Mudryk won’t find a solution to some extent to get himself into a position where the ban is reduced from four years to two years.
“And by the time that comes around, he’ll be almost out because he’d have served the time in the last 15-16 months. My nose tells me, that with the kind of resources that a player that’s cost £88m would have around him, that they’ll find a way to get themselves into a position despite strict liability and having to account for it, that they get themselves back into a situation where two years is what they serve.
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“And given they’re 15, 16 months already into it, he’ll be back available as a professional footballer in December of 2026.”
Jordan continued: “Chelsea are sitting on the sidelines paying his salary because the alternative is, either looking at the opportunity as a breach of contract, because if he’s being charged and now found guilty, he’s potentially in breach of contract.
“They probably don’t want to do that because they’ve got his registration, if they terminate his contract, they terminated the registration which means they can’t sell him.”
The eSPORTY host added: “You’ll be able to sell him despite the challenge of what he is and what he isn’t, for £20m-£30m, you’ve booked a profit at that time.
“So there’s lots in it for Chelsea to think about, the player I doubt will play for Chelsea again, because he was a mile off in lots of people’s minds in terms of his competence.
“And what you’ve got, is a player now that is an £80m misfit, has got banned for drug consequences, now defending himself – not against the fact there’s drugs in his system – against how they’ve got there.
“Strict liability means you’ve got to have a cast-iron, copper bottom, unassailable reason, which clearly hasn’t been the case, otherwise he wouldn’t be getting a four-year ban from the outset.
“He’s relying on the Court of Arbitration for Sport to look at it perhaps more equitably in their minds, and the usual form is, they’ll take the ban and they’ll take it into two years rather than four.
“That’s not exonerating yourself, that’s just bringing yourself back quicker, and then that becomes a situation where Chelsea go, ‘We can still monetise this player.'”
