AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Ajax goalkeeper André Onana was banned for one year by UEFA in a doping case on Friday and is set to miss next year’s African Cup of Nations in his home nation of Cameroon.
Onana tested positive for furosemide, a banned diuretic often used as a masking agent to hide the presence of other drugs, in a urine sample given last October.
After feeling unwell, Onana said he took a pill prescribed for his girlfriend from a packet he mistook for aspirin “because the packaging was almost identical.”
“I just want to clarify that everything was the result of a human mistake,” Onana said in a statement, describing the UEFA ban as “excessive and disproportionate.