Odds were stacked against Simona Halep: ITIA supposedly spent estimated $2million to prove her guilty

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has given Simona Halep the all clear to return to tennis with a near two year ban being ended after nine months by the Lausanne jury. But according to her lawyer, Howard Jacobs, the ITIA tried their best to prove her guilty.

Jacobs specialises in anti-doping cases, salary disputes and team selection issues. He has represented over 200 athletes including two who have returned to the sport in Halep and Maria Sharapova. Halep was initially charged for four years after taking the prohibited substance Roxudustat and was banned after the 2022 US Open. In addition, she was found guilty of a further breach on her ABP (Athlete Biological Passport). But now after a long wait will return next week.

But her sports lawyer believes that they coughed up over $2million in order to fight the cawe in the favour of the ITIA as they seemingly wanted to make a point of Halep and continuing the ban.

"I don't think I've ever had one go as strangely as this one to have them fight that to the bitter end and then tack on this blood doping charge. The case became super, super complicated. I can't even imagine how much money they spent prosecuting it. Cannot even imagine," said Jacobs to Sports Illustrated.

"I'm going to say it's at least $2 million because they had so many experts and they had so many lawyers and everything was fought."

Many have since called for Patrick Mouratoglou to be banned, but he sees that the players would suffer as they would be solely responsible for their mistakes. "The rules don't provide for any punishment for that (for coaches). Should they? I don't know. I mean, if they did, then probably no coaches would be recommending supplements to athletes."

"One of the things that they (CAS) ask is, “Did you consult with a knowledgeable expert?” So if a coach has a team of people and they've vetted the supplement, then, generally, CAS would say that's better than if an athlete just goes online and, you know, buys the first thing that they see."