Ukraine suffered a blow ahead of the Euro 2012 championship which they are co-hosting with Poland after international goalkeeper Alexander Rybka was handed a two-year doping ban, local media reported on Monday.

The 24-year-old Shakhtar Donetsk player tested positive for a banned diuretic contained in a weight-loss product after a domestic league match in November.

The sentence handed down by European football’s governing body UEFA effectively ends Rybka’s hopes of playing at the European championship in June.

Rybka won two caps in friendlies last year against Germany and Austria and was considered one of the main candidates for Euro 2012 by national coach Oleg Blokhin.