JOHANNESBURG, Dec 16: Former South African national football team captain Mbulelo Mabizela has been handed a six-month ban and fined nearly 10,000 dollars after failing a drugs test, officials told AFP Friday.

The 26-year-old midfielder, who had a stint with English premiership giants Tottenham Hotspur and who is now with Pretoria-based Mamelodi Sundowns, was handed the sentence by a South African Football Association (SAFA) disciplinary committee for having traces of marijuana in a urine sample taken in November.

SAFA chief executive officer Raymond Hack said that in addition to the immediate six month ban, his sentence could be doubled if he were to reoffend.

“He has been given a 12 month ban, with the other six months suspended,”Hack told AFP.

Mabizela has a reputation for disciplinary problems and was stripped of the captaincy of the national team, known as the Bafana Bafana, in 2004 after he arrived late for training.

A year later he was dropped from the team to play the Democratic Republic of Congo after he went on a drinking spree with friends.

His contract at White Hart Lane was also cancelled after only a year after a number of scrapes and a subsequent stay at Norwegian club Valerenga fizzled out before he returned home.—AFP