I think I’ve probably made my views on drugs in sport pretty clear in this column over the past couple of years. Don’t do it.

Maria Sharapova clearly doesn’t read A Hoad Off My Mind very often. Perhaps someone emailed her the link but she just couldn’t be bothered to click on it.

This week’s revelation that the pin-up girl of tennis, five-time Grand Slam winner and one of the highest-profile female athletes of all time, had failed a drugs test left me feeling pretty hollow, if truth be told.

However, the full story – or at least the version we’ve been given of it – makes it probably the most murky fail in sporting history.

As with almost all positive tests in any sport, the athlete is either a colossal idiot, a pathological liar, or in the most extreme and frightening cases, both.

Maria went with the ‘I’m an idiot’ defence after finding out she’d failed a test due to Meldonium (you’ll be hearing a lot more about that from now on, be warned. Its sales have gone up several hundred per cent this week, despite it’s online import price nearly doubling in 24 hours).

Personally, I’m a much bigger fan of the ‘idiot’ than the athlete who flat out denies it, can’t explain it or denies all knowledge – although I do still have a teensy soft spot for anyone who actually fesses up and says ‘Yep, you got me, sorry.’

Maria claims she has been taking this drug for a decade to combat problems with diabetes. It was only on January 1 that it was banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Nobody comes out of the next bit well.

Neither she nor anyone in her ‘team’ bothered to check the list of newly-banned substances which was circulated by WADA before Christmas. OK. That is stupid.

WADA, who knew she had been taking it for 10 years, didn’t think it appropriate to call her, or send her an email or a pigeon or whatever to make sure she was aware of the change.

One of the best-known players in the world. One might have thought it wise. This comes across almost like WADA wanted to showcase how stringent they are.

So, whatever the truth, or rights or wrongs, Maria is going to get banned for a long time. Women’s tennis will have to find someone else to capitulate against Serena in the semis of Grand Slams for up to four years.

One of the things which annoys me the most about all this, other than its sheer unnecessaryness (if that’s a word) is why Sharapova’s sponsor Nike decided to dump the poster girl who held her hands up and admitted she had been, if we take her word for it, stupid and careless and negligent but continues to support disgraced sprinter Justin Gatlin, who has twice been handed lengthy bans for doping and yet refuses to accept any responsibility.

Their slogan is Just Do It. I think they should borrow mine and switch to Don’t Do It. Sends out a better message.