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What religion is Mykhailo Mudryk?
Mykhailo Mudryk is a Ukrainian professional footballer who is a devout Orthodox Christian. His faith began at age nine when his grandmother gave him a religious item to help him read the Bible and overcome childhood fears. Mudryk also has ‘Only Jesus’ tattooed on his neck, along with a prayer on his chest that reads, ‘Dear God, if today I lose hope, please remind me that your plans are better than my dreams.’
Mykhailo Mudryk plays as a left winger for Chelsea and the Ukraine national team. He started his career in the youth academies of Metalist Kharkiv, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, and Shakhtar Donetsk before Chelsea signed him in January 2023 in a transfer worth an initial €70 million, making him the most expensive Ukrainian player in history at the time. Between December 2024 and July 2026, he served a suspension from football for testing positive in a doping test.
Doping accusation and suspension
Mudryk underwent an out-of-competition drug test on 22 October 2024 that returned an adverse finding for meldonium, a substance known to assist with stamina, recovery, and endurance. He was subsequently notified by the Football Association of the result on 4 December 2024, and he was given a provisional suspension that ruled him out from that point on. His last competitive appearance before the ban had come against Heidenheim in the UEFA Conference League that November.
The FA formally charged him in May 2025 with anti-doping rule violations. Mudryk has always insisted he has not knowingly taken any banned substance, and he also believes his sample was contaminated, with nothing thought to have changed in his diet since he passed a UK anti-doping test in August.
In January 2026, an independent regulatory commission found him guilty of the violation and imposed a four-year ban. Mudryk appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in February 2026. The case was settled in July 2026 with Mudryk, the FA, and WADA agreeing to a settlement after the FA explicitly noted that under the updated guidelines, the exact concentration found in Mudryk’s 2024 sample would no longer register as a positive test or trigger a violation.
As part of the settlement, Mudryk accepted the anti-doping violation in exchange for having his four-year ban reduced to the exact period of time he had already served. This means Mudryk will rejoin Chelsea and return to competitive football with immediate effect.
Early life
Mykhailo Mudryk was born on 5 January 2001 in Krasnohrad, in Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast. His parents are Petro and Inna Mudryk, and he has a sister, Tatyana. He began playing football at Metalist Kharkiv’s academy before moving to Dnipro’s youth setup in 2014 at age 13. Shakhtar Donetsk signed him for their academy in 2016.
Shakhtar Donetsk
When Mudryk was 17 years old, he made his first-team debut on October 31, 2018, in a Ukrainian Cup match against Olimpik Donetsk. He went on loan to Arsenal Kyiv in 2019 and to Desna Chernihiv to gain first-team experience. Mudryk later returned to Shakhtar, playing three matches in the 2020–21 Ukrainian Premier League, and was subsequently named the Shakhtar Donetsk Player of the Year for two consecutive years, in 2021 and 2022.
In total in his time with Shakhtar, Mudryk scored 12 goals in 44 appearances, including three in the Champions League. He also contributed to their Ukrainian Premier League victories in 2019-20 and 2022-23, as well as the Ukrainian Cup in 2018-19, and was named Ukraine’s Footballer of the Year in 2022.
Chelsea
In January 2023, Mykhailo Mudryk was signed by the English Premier League club Chelsea for a reported initial fee of €70 million. He signed an eight-and-a-half-year contract under this deal, which means he is to stay with the Blues until June 2031.
He made his Chelsea debut as a substitute in a goalless draw against Liverpool and scored his first goal for the club in October 2023 in a 2-0 away win over Fulham. He was a runner-up in the 2023-24 EFL Cup and later won the UEFA Conference League with Chelsea in 2025.
Following an 18-month suspension, Mudryk’s doping ban was resolved, and on 31 July 2026, all charges were dropped as Mudryk became free and available to play again in all competitions. Mudryk is expected to join up with the Chelsea squad in Hong Kong for pre-season.
International career
Mudryk represented Ukraine at every youth level from Under-16 through Under-21. He made his senior debut for Ukraine on 1 June 2022 in a FIFA World Cup qualification play-off against Scotland and was subsequently part of Ukraine’s squad at UEFA Euro 2024 in Germany.