Kolo Toure escapes with six month drugs ban

Kolo Toure has been banned for six months after admitting taking some of his wife's dietary tablets. The water tablets contained diuretics, traces of which were found in the Manchester City defender's blood when he took a random drugs test after an FA Cup tie on February 12.

Toure was suspended on March 2, the day the results of the test were released, and the six month ban handed down by the Football Association is backdated to that date. The 30-year-old Toure issued a short statement on Thursday night in which he said: "This has been a difficult period for me and I am sad to have missed the team's triumph of securing Champions League football for Manchester City and also the FA Cup. But I am relieved that I will be able to return to football in September and thank the FA's commission for their understanding about my case in coming to their decision."

Toure's relief at being able to resume his football career on September 2 stemmed from the fact that had the FA Commission believed he took the tablets to enhance his sporting prowess they could have banned him for at least two years. Diuretics are a main component of water tablets and have been taken by athletes to mask the presence of performance-enhancing drugs. But the Commission's chairman Christopher Quinlan QC accepted Toure's explanation that he was simply trying to shed some pounds and not boost his performance. "The player accepted he was at fault and with that concession we agree," said Quinlan. "He was at fault in the limited and perfunctory efforts he made in relation to the water tablets. The checks he made in relation to those tablets were inadequate and fell some way below what it would be reasonable to expect of a professional footballer in these circumstances."

The Commission also announced that the Ivory Coast star will be target-tested for banned substances during the next two years.

The length of the ban – half of what Australian cricketer Shane Warne received in 2003 for a similar offence – is good news for City manager Roberto Mancini. Having braced himself for being without Toure until next year, Mancini will only be deprived of his captain for the first half a dozen games of the season, although one of them will be their Community Shield clash with Manchester United on August 7. ·