The ruling also includes a six-year suspension for Giorgi Chkoidze, three-year bans for Lasha Khmaladze, Otar Lashkhi and Miriani Modebadze, and a nine-month suspension for Lasha Lomidze. Doctor Nutsa Shamatava, the team’s former medical officer, was banned for nine years, while the Georgia Rugby Union accepted a misconduct charge, a financial penalty and new obligations around anti-doping education and control.

A sample substitution scheme before Rugby World Cup 2023

The investigation was launched after World Rugby detected irregularities in urine samples collected through its out-of-competition testing programme in the period before Rugby World Cup 2023 in France. Further analysis, including DNA testing and samples preserved through the governing body’s long-term storage system, linked Sharikadze to samples attributed to three other Georgia players.

According to World Rugby, Sharikadze provided urine for samples associated with Modebadze, Lomidze and Lashkhi between February 2022 and June 2023. Shamatava was identified as the organiser of the sample substitution scheme and also as the person who gave advance notice of out-of-competition tests in group chats involving at least 26 players.

The sporting and reputational blow for Sharikadze and Georgia

The governing body said its initial working hypothesis was that the substitutions were intended to conceal the use of performance-enhancing substances, although the investigation found no evidence to support that line. It did find credible evidence that the samples were switched to hide substances not linked to performance enhancement, including cannabis and tramadol.

The sanction bars Sharikadze from any rugby-related activity until 2035, although the player had already retired from the sport and started a career in mixed martial arts. His standing in Georgian rugby was significant: he captained the national team that beat Wales in Cardiff in 2022 and earned more than 100 caps for Georgia.

Georgia keeps its place at Rugby World Cup 2027

The case comes at a sensitive point for Georgia, a national team that had built much of its international profile on its dominance of the Rugby Europe Championship and on the recurring debate over its place in higher-level competition structures, including the Six Nations. The sanction does not amount to a direct sporting exclusion, but it does damage the institutional position of a union now required to apply additional anti-doping education and control measures after accepting the misconduct charge.

The institutional setback also follows an unexpected sporting result: Georgia lost the Rugby Europe Championship final to Portugal in March, 19-17, ending a 43-match unbeaten run in the competition and leaving the Georgians without the title for the first time since 2017. Georgia’s participation in Rugby World Cup 2027 is not affected by the case: the team keeps its place at the tournament in Australia and has been drawn in pool B alongside South Africa, Italy and Romania.

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That is why the blow is even greater. The joint investigation by WADA and World Rugby, named ‘Operation Obsidian’, confirmed anti-doping rule violations by six players and one member of the support staff of the Georgia men’s national team. According to the investigation, there was urine sample substitution, advance warnings about controls and serious failures in the supervision of sample collection, irregularities detected through World Rugby’s biological passport programme before the 2023 World Cup. WADA itself even expressed a loss of confidence in the Georgian anti-doping agency.

We are talking about Georgia, a team that had turned its growth into one of the most solid and admired stories in European rugby over the last decade, reaching its best-ever position of 11th in the world rankings, securing qualification for the 2027 World Cup and maintaining a run of 35 matches unbeaten in the Rugby Europe Championship.

It is not just a team that falls, it is a narrative that falls

It is also devastating because of the structure of the cheating, as it is not an isolated case but a system of protection around deception, with the use of recreational drugs, sample swapping and prior warnings about controls. That points to a systemic culture, and in that case it is much harder to solve the problem simply by removing the players who tested positive… The clean-up should extend to the leadership, to the sporting structure at all levels… In short, cleaning the infected area and the surrounding tissue.

Georgia had won 16 European titles up to 2025, linked seven consecutive championships before losing to Portugal and had monopolised the Rugby Europe Championship for years. In addition, the Georgian ecosystem had been reinforced by the dominance of Black Lion in the Rugby Europe Super Cup, with four consecutive titles in 2024/25, and its continuous presence in World Cups since 2003… Now it is known that all of this was a house of cards supported by cheating and lies.

The worst thing this case leaves is falsehood

How many scrums were manipulated? How many runs down the wings were false? How many titles lifted were tainted? The great falsehood left by the scandal is not only that of manipulated samples. It is that of a moral superiority that accompanied the Georgian narrative. With what face could those cheaters look at their opponent in the third half while enjoying victory with a beer? Do they love rugby so little?

WADA has already warned that it has lost confidence in the Georgian anti-doping structure and World Rugby keeps the disciplinary process open to publish all resolutions and sanctions. That means the case could still grow. Georgia will continue to be an important nation in European rugby, because its base, its fans and its competitive tradition do not disappear overnight. How many have they robbed of their place in international rugby? How much could rugby in Spain, Portugal or Romania have grown in the media if they had achieved victories that were taken away by the Lelos?

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