Two German national team players tested positive for a banned substance at the UEFA Super Cup match against Manchester United, and Bavarian newspaper Bild reports they were former Bayer Leverkusen striker Simon Rolfes and Bayern Munich defender Rudy Boateng.
According to Bild, they tested positive for methylhexaneamine, which is considered a stimulant. Rolfes scored for Leverkusen against Bayern in an A-League match in August 2017 and another German Premier League club played a match against a Brazilian side in May, both with methylhexaneamine.
Cristiano Ronaldo, though not the target of the tests, was hit with a three-match ban in 2013 for taking a legal supplement in Greece that contained the substance. That led to the Italian football federation banning players from using the substance for five years.
Boateng has been linked with the German team, as well as Chelsea, recently, but failed a drugs test in 2013 as part of a doping case involving two other European players.
Bongiovanni denies the presence of methylhexaneamine. He said in a statement that officials are skeptical of the substance’s ingestion and also had suspicions that the supplement could have brought on the positive test.
Click for more from Sky Sports.