In short it comes down to one man's insecurity, some scattered thinking and blurred priorities. Kolo Touré did not reach for his wife Avo's slimming pills out of vanity. It was not because he had bought a new pair of jeans and was not happy with how they looked. He did it because, in football, it can be a big deal being a few pounds overweight, particularly at a club with Manchester City's ambitions, with half a dozen centre-halves competing for two spots and the newspapers full of stories about the next-best-thing to be signed.

Touré's problem appears to be that he was so concerned about undertaking a body-fat test he did not give enough thought to what it might mean for a drugs test. Whether he was overweight, we cannot be certain. But the pressures that accompany these BMI (body-mass index) checks are considerable.

"He took the pills to lose weight," his adviser Valere Gouriso said. "He was doing it because he wanted to be successful. He wanted to get his weight down so he has taken the pills that his wife uses and now it turns out there was some substance in them that is prohibited."

Touré, in other words, has been guilty of gross naivety, at the very least – so hung up about his weight he decided to experiment from a box of multicoloured capsules that, taking a leap of logic, we can only presume he did not know enough about.

His lawyers intend to argue it was an innocent mistake, that Touré had no idea he was digesting a banned substance that has not yet been named officially but was detected in a test he took after the 2-1 defeat at Manchester United on 12 February. Whether that line of defence will have any impact on his punishment is difficult to know but what can be said with certainty is that he will not go short when it comes to character witnesses.

Arsène Wenger's admiration for his former player was apparent to everyone who heard his detailed account of how a devastated Touré had telephoned the Arsenal manager on Thursday evening. Wenger worked with him for seven years and talks of Touré as one of the good guys: hard-working and professional, dedicated to his career and never someone to court controversy deliberately. "He has a clean life, very honest living, he is always at home. He is a family man," Wenger said.

Those who know Touré best will also testify that, despite his considerable wealth, he has remained grounded and approachable – a legacy, perhaps, of growing up in an impoverished part of Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, working as a shoeshine boy alongside his brother Yaya to earn money for a large, sprawling family.

There have been no paparazzi sightings of him stumbling out of the bars favoured by Manchester's glitterati. He does not drive the fastest car at City's training ground. The windows are not blacked out and he is happy to park in the space that is allotted to him as opposed to, say, Mario Balotelli, who routinely puts his Lamborghini on the kerb straight outside the double doors.

A committed Muslim, Touré practises his faith at a mosque in Stretford, not far from Manchester United's stadium. He is prominently involved with City's community work and a substantial part of his salary is sent to the Ivory Coast. He and Awo have a daughter, Sania, and a son, Yiassin. "We are a strict Muslim family," his father, Mory, says. "He does everything for his family and would never have anything to do with drugs."

Mark Hughes, who brought Touré to City and made him captain, describes him as "a good professional, [someone who] leads his life correctly".

When Touré became embroiled in a training-ground fight with Emmanuel Adebayor at the start of January it speaks volumes about his character that so many people concluded the blame should be apportioned on his team-mate. At Arsenal Touré fell out with William Gallas but tried to be dignified about it and politely sidestepped questions at his first press conference as a City player.

His current manager, Roberto Mancini, has, as yet, said nothing, but only because City are anxious to do everything via the right channels rather than defending Touré through the media.

The club have taken legal advice and do not want to portray him as the victim or to be seen as putting pressure on the authorities when he stands accused of committing a serious offence, intentionally or not.

"When players are away from their clubs, although it can be quite innocent, if they don't check what they put into their bodies they can be compromised," Hughes said. "There can be mistakes made."

Touré, nowhere to be seen as Mancini's men trained ahead of their game against Wigan Athletic, appears to have made the worst of his professional life.