Paul Pogba

• 1. Introduction

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  Paul Labile Pogba was born on the 15th of March 1993 in Lagny-sur-Marne, France, to Guinean parents, and by his early twenties he had become the most expensive footballer on the planet. The number tells the story bluntly: €105 million, the fee Manchester United paid to bring him back from Juventus in 2016, a world record at the time. But no price tag can account for what happened next. The dazzling midfielder who had won four consecutive Italian league titles, inspired France to a World Cup, and collected just about every award a young player can win would spend the following years lurching between brilliance and controversy, injury and exile, a doping ban and a court case involving witchcraft doctors and €13 million in alleged extortion demands. How does a career that dazzling become this complicated? The answers start on a football pitch in a small town south of Paris, where a six-year-old joined his first club.

• 2. The Making of a Midfielder

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  US Roissy-en-Brie, a few miles south of Lagny-sur-Marne, was where Pogba spent his first seven seasons as a footballer. From there he moved to US Torcy, where he captained the under-13 team, and then to Le Havre, the Ligue 2 club that would become the first flashpoint of his career. At Le Havre, Pogba captained the under-16 team to the final phase of the Championnat National des 16 ans, finishing second to Lens but ahead of Lyon and Nancy. He also began representing France at youth level, scoring his first youth international goal in the 2009 Aegean Cup Final against Norway, a 1-0 lead in a match France won 2-1.

  On the 31st of July 2009, Pogba announced he was leaving Le Havre for Manchester United's youth academy. The announcement triggered a legal dispute. Le Havre claimed a "non-solicitation agreement" had been in place since 2006, signed by the player and his parents, that would have allowed the club to offer Pogba an aspirant contract once he reached specific age and scholarship thresholds. The club's president, Jean-Pierre Louvel, alleged Pogba had been lured away for £87,000 and a house. Pogba denied the claim. His former club Torcy waded in with its own statement, pointing out that Le Havre had done to Torcy exactly what it was now accusing Manchester United of doing. On the 7th of October, a FIFA-appointed judge cleared Manchester United of wrongdoing. Le Havre eventually settled with the club by June 2010 under confidential terms.

• 3. Juventus and the Golden Years

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  Alex Ferguson confirmed Pogba's departure from Manchester United on the 3rd of July 2012, and did so with notable sharpness, saying the player had shown United "no respect at all." Pogba had signed for Juventus on a free transfer. His first competitive appearance came against Chievo on the 22nd of September 2012, and his first goal followed on the 20th of October in a 2-0 win over Napoli. By the 5th of May 2013, Pogba was central enough to Juventus's ambitions to be on the pitch when they clinched the Scudetto, though he was sent off in that match for spitting toward an opponent after being struck in the face.

  In December 2013, Pogba was named the Golden Boy, the award for Europe's best young player. In 2014, he won the Bravo Award from the Italian magazine Il Guerin Sportivo, given to the best under-23 player in European competition. He was on the Ballon d'Or shortlist that year at 21, the youngest of the 23 candidates. He made more appearances, 51, than any other Juventus player across all competitions in the 2013-14 season, scoring 9 goals.

  His performances kept rising through the 2015-16 campaign. Juventus awarded him the number-10 shirt that season, the jersey previously worn by Alessandro Del Piero, Roberto Baggio, and Michel Platini. He scored 8 Serie A goals that year and led the league in assists with 12, level with Miralem Pjanic. On the 13th of May 2015, he had set up Alvaro Morata's equaliser against Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final second leg, a goal that sent Juventus to the final on a 3-2 aggregate result, their first final in twelve years. That final, on the 6th of June 2015 in Berlin's Olympiastadion, ended in a 3-1 defeat to Barcelona. Gianluigi Buffon would later compare Pogba to Michel Platini and Zinedine Zidane, praising his ability to "swiftly change the play from defence to attack."

• 4. Record Fee, Mixed Return

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  On the 8th of August 2016, Pogba signed a five-year contract with Manchester United for €105 million plus €5 million in bonuses, overtaking Gareth Bale as the holder of football's highest transfer fee. His agent, Mino Raiola, received a reported €27 million from Juventus as part of the arrangement. The fee remained the highest ever paid by an English club until 2021.

  The first season back produced genuine silverware. Pogba scored the winning goal in the 18th minute of the Europa League final against Ajax on the 24th of May 2017, the margin in a 2-0 win that gave United their first continental trophy in nine years. He also scored in an EFL Cup semi-final that helped United reach and win that competition. But his relationship with manager Jose Mourinho deteriorated steadily. In the 2018-19 season, Mourinho stripped him of the temporary captaincy he had been given during Antonio Valencia's absence, and the two were filmed in a public confrontation during training. Mourinho eventually branded Pogba a "virus" who was infecting the team's results. In March 2022, Pogba disclosed that he had suffered from depression during Mourinho's tenure.

  When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer replaced Mourinho in December 2018, Pogba's output surged. He scored 11 league goals and 16 in all competitions that season, his best numbers for the club, and was named in the PFA Team of the Year. The 2021-22 season ended with Pogba providing four assists in a single Premier League match against Leeds United, becoming the seventh player in the competition's history to manage that in one game. He left the club on the expiration of his contract in June 2022.

• 5. World Cup Glory

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  France's senior team gave Pogba his debut on the 22nd of March 2013 in a 2014 World Cup qualifier against Georgia, a 3-1 win in which he played all 90 minutes. He scored his first senior international goal against Belarus on the 10th of September 2013 in a 4-2 victory. At the 2014 World Cup itself, he scored the opening goal against Nigeria in the round of 16, a 79th-minute strike in a 2-0 win in Brasilia, and was named the Best Young Player of the tournament on the 13th of July 2014.

  Euro 2016, played on French soil, started badly. Pogba was criticised for his performance in a 2-1 win over Romania and was left on the bench for the following group game. Former England international Gary Lineker publicly questioned whether he was the world's most overrated player after Pogba conceded a penalty against Ireland in the round of 16. But in the quarter-final against Iceland at the Stade de France on the 3rd of July, Pogba answered with a dominant display, scoring from a header following Antoine Griezmann's corner and setting up further attack. France reached the final, only to lose 1-0 to Portugal after extra time.

  The 2018 World Cup in Russia delivered vindication. In the 59th minute of the final against Croatia, Pogba struck from the edge of the penalty area to extend France's lead to 3-1. France won the match 4-2. He was later made a Knight of the Legion of Honour in recognition of the victory.

• 6. Doping, Extortion, and the Long Way Back

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  Pogba's return to Juventus in July 2022 on a four-year contract lasted less than two months before injury struck. He tore the meniscus in his knee on the 26th of July 2022 and eventually required surgery that kept him out past the 2022 World Cup. His second debut for the club only came on the 28th of February 2023, as a substitute in a 4-2 win over Torino. He managed just 161 combined minutes across the entire campaign before a lesion in his left thigh ended his season in May 2023.

  On the 11th of September 2023, Juventus provisionally suspended Pogba after non-endogenous testosterone was found in a test following a match against Udinese on the 20th of August. Italy's National Anti-Doping Tribunal handed down a four-year ban on the 29th of February 2024. An appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced the ban to 18 months on the 4th of October 2024, making him eligible to resume training in January 2025 and competitive play in March 2025. Juventus and Pogba agreed to terminate his contract by the 30th of November 2024.

  Off the pitch, a separate ordeal had already been unfolding. In August 2022, French investigators opened a probe into alleged extortion. Pogba told police he had been physically "trapped by childhood friends" and "two gunmen" who demanded €13 million for past services, including payments to witchcraft doctors known as Marabout. He said he had also been harassed during Juventus training sessions and had considered quitting football altogether. On the 19th of December 2024, his brother Mathias Pogba was sentenced to three years in prison, with two years suspended, for his role in the attempted extortion. Five other defendants received sentences of up to eight years.

• 7. Monaco and an Uncertain Future

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  On the 28th of June 2025, Pogba signed a contract with Monaco running until the 30th of June 2027. His first competitive appearance for the club, on the 22nd of November 2025, came as a substitute in a 4-1 away defeat against Rennes, his first match in 811 days. By January 2026, Monaco's general manager Thiago Scuro had publicly acknowledged that "the plan put in place is not working as expected," raising the possibility of reconsidering Pogba's future at the club the following summer. Pogba's last appearance had been on the 5th of December 2025 against Stade Brestois, a 0-1 defeat in which he played 21 minutes before suffering a calf injury. He had by that point played only 30 minutes total in Ligue 1 and had not featured in any Champions League matches. In February 2026, he was omitted from Monaco's UEFA Champions League squad for the remainder of the season due to the persistent injury. Away from the pitch, he became a shareholder of the Saudi team Al Haboob, described as the world's first professional camel racing team, in December 2025.