Drugs ban Saido Berahino: Someone spiked my drink

The 23-year-old claimed the positive drugs test he gave was so minimal that he could not possibly have sought to ‘get a buzz’ from it.

Berahino, who sparked outrage when he threatened to strike at Albion when a transfer bid from Tottenham was turned down, said he had never taken drugs in his life.

And the Burundi-born striker, who signed for Stoke City in a £13million move in January, claimed no-one at Albion protected him during his final months at the club as details of his personal life were exposed.

Asked in an interview to be screened on BBC One’s Football Focus tomorrow how he came to test positive for a recreational drug, the Cannock-based player said: “I didn’t know how it got into my system. We had specialists that analysed me that took my hair follicles for six months.

“I have never taken drugs in my life, no-one in my family has ever taken drugs there was nothing in my hair, there was no cannabis, no cocaine, no MDMA whatever they found. You go on a night out and you don’t know who you’re around and there’s people out there to get you whatever.

“Of course I was in the nightclub so I hold my hands up for being irresponsible but from then on it all just crashed down.”

Asked if his drink was spiked, Berahino responded: “Yeah, definitely because if I was going to get high – like the specialist said – you would have taken an amount where you want to get high.

“The threshold would have been higher, the numbers would have been higher that they found in my system but it was really, really low.

“So why would you want to take something and not get a buzz off it?”

The striker said he ‘hated’ his last 18 months at the Baggies and disputed that he had been protected by boss Tony Pulis, staying: “I don’t think he protected me. No-one at that club protected me.”

And he added: “How can you be unfit after having a full pre-season and playing three games. It was the contract, because I wouldn’t sign a contract.”