Shakhtar Donetsk have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn the two-year doping suspension of goalkeeper Olexandr Rybka, the Ukrainian club’s chief executive Sergey Palkin said Wednesday.
European football's governing body UEFA handed the maximum penalty to the Ukraine international in January after he tested positive for a banned diuretic following a November league match against FC Karpaty.
UEFA’s appeals committee has since refused to reduce the term and requested that FIFA extend the sanction to worldwide competition.
“Our next step is the Lausanne court. We have already lodged an appeal,” Palkin said of global sport's highest court.
He added that UEFA sources had told him the CAS may hear the case in the next two months, meaning if the decision is overturned Rybka would be eligible for Euro 2012, which Ukraine is co-hosting with Poland.
UEFA has not officially disclosed the substance found in Rybka’s samples, but Palkin said it was furosemide, a diuretic typically used to treat sufferers of congestive heart failure, and which makes other illegal substances harder to trace.
“In terms of professionalism Rybka did not behave properly,” Palkin said. The club contends that the diuretic could not have affected Rybka's performance because he took it after the match.
Rybka, 24, has played 25 Ukrainian league and Champions League games for Shakhtar since joining from Obolon Kiev last summer, and was a member of the Dynamo Kiev side that won the 2007 Ukrainian title.
He has two caps for Ukraine and last played for the national team against Germany in November, and had widely been tipped to feature in the Euro 2012 Ukraine squad.
