Conor McGregor Receives 18-Month Suspension for Anti-Doping Violations
The renowned mixed martial arts fighter, Conor McGregor, has been suspended for 18 months by the UFC’s anti-doping program, Combat Sports Anti-Doping (CSAD). The sanction, announced on Tuesday, is retroactive to September 20, 2024, and will end on March 20, 2026. This suspension comes at a crucial moment for McGregor, who has been showing interest in participating in a UFC event scheduled for June 14, coinciding with the birthday of former President Donald Trump. This event would mark his return to the cage after almost five years of absence. The suspension is due to three “whereabouts failures” in which McGregor did not show up for drug tests. These tests, conducted on June 13, September 19, and September 20, 2024, resulted in a lack of precise information about his location.The CSAD statement also notes that UFC athletes must provide accurate whereabouts information at all times in order to be contacted and undergo testing without prior notice. On June 13, the date of one of the failures, coincided with the announcement of the cancellation of the scheduled fight between McGregor and Michael Chandler at UFC 303. CSAD clarified that McGregor was recovering from an injury and was not preparing for a fight at that time. CSAD highlighted that McGregor fully cooperated with the investigation, accepted responsibility, and provided detailed information that contributed to the failures. Due to this cooperation and the circumstances, CSAD reduced the standard 24-month sanction for three whereabouts failures to 18 months. The suspension began on September 20, 2024 and will conclude on March 20, 2026. This suspension comes a day after McGregor announced on X that he would be taking an indefinite break from social media. Currently, the former two-division champion is in the UFC’s drug testing pool, having submitted four samples in 2025.“McGregor missed three attempts to collect biological samples within a 12-month period in 2024, which constitutes a violation of the UFC ADP,” reads a CSAD press release on the UFC website.
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