Barnsley defender Bambo Diaby has been suspended for two years for a doping violation, the Football Association has announced.
The 22-year-old was charged after providing a urine sample in November last year after testing positive for the natural stimulant higenamine, which is nevertheless on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned substances.
An independent regulatory commission imposed the mandatory two-year ban.
Diaby admitted the charge, the FA said, but did not establish how the substance entered his system. The suspension is effective from the date of the player's provisional suspension on January 17, 2020 and will run up to and including January 16, 2022.
Bambo Diaby's investigation has concluded. — Barnsley FC (@BarnsleyFC) October 7, 2020
The FA also published the written reasons in the case, which mentioned that Diaby initially thought the consumption of throat lozenges (Strepsils) could explain the adverse finding.
Diaby was unable to establish that there had been no fault or negligence, so a two-year ban had to be imposed.
Diaby was also ordered to meet the costs of the hearing, listed as £1,680.
The commission stated: "It goes almost without saying that this will have major personal and financial consequences for him and those members of his family that he supports.
"We are very sensitive to that reality and even had we been asked to consider the imposition of a fine in addition to the sanction agreed and order for costs made (which, very fairly, we were not) we should record that we would not have
imposed one."
