Top 5 Scandals in Football History You Probably Don’t Know

Although with a stellar viewership and an illustrious past, football is revered as one of the most popular sports throughout the world, the game has also witnessed its share of infamous scandals over the past few decades. Similar to other highly-competitive and professional sports, including basketball, swimming, wrestling, the unfortunate cases of doping and match-fixing have plagued the history of football as well. Additionally, the officials officiating the football matches have also been criticized for being actively involved in unfair decision-making, taking bribes and racketeering. While a majority of football aficionados commemorate the glorious moments of football and the stalwarts of the game, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Pele, Diego Maradona and many others, only a few are aware of the repugnant side of the world’s most prominent game. 

In this article, we will take a look at the top five ugliest scandals in the history of football that shook the world.

• The 1965 Bundesliga Scandal

The 1965 Bundesliga scandal plagued the history of German football and transformed their image throughout the world. The football players of Hertha BSC were alleged to take bribes in order to deliberately lose crucial matches in the tournament. While the players of Hertha BSC club were being investigated, the agencies discovered that the allegations were just a tip of an iceberg, an entire network of corruption that involved other prominent clubs, as well. As a consequence of being declared guilty, the Hertha BSC club was stripped of their league and license and strict penalties were introduced to avoid such heinous acts in the future. Although the investigation penalized the guilty, the verdict plagued the reputation of German football players in the long run. 

• The 2006 Calciopoli Scandal

The year 2006 is often referred to as the dark year in the history of football as it revealed a shocking and disturbing side of the game that is viewed and followed by millions around the world. The infamous Calciopoli scandal revealed a network of match-fixing and involved prominent players from the football league Serie A teams, including Juventus F.C., AC Milan, Fiorentina, and Lazio. The telephone records that suggested strong connections between club executives and referee organizations to choose ‘favorable’ referees stirred fuming controversies around the world. The shocking revelation of the 2006 Calciopoli scandal resulted in Juventus being stripped of the 2004-05 Serie A title. Often dubbed as “Calciopoli bis’, the investigation also impacted other prominent clubs, including Brescia, Cagliari, ChievoVerona, Empoli, Inter Milan, Palermo, Udinese, and Vicenza. However, they could not be booked for a trial due to the statute of limitations. The 2006 Calciopoli scandal created waves in the arena of football and raised numerous questions about the officiating staff and the fairness of the game.

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1.  The FIFA Scandal of 2015

The pioneer of football and the most prestigious tournament of the game, the FIFA World Cup, suffered a major blow in 2015. Popularly referred to as the FIFA Scandal of 2015, it exposed the dark side of football’s most regulated governing body, raising a trail of fuming questions about the transparency, integrity and fairness of the format. During the infamous FIFA Scandal of 2015, FIFA officials were alleged to take bribes to manipulate the match results by the United States Department of Justice. Furthermore, the FIFA officials were also alleged to accept kickbacks in exchange for votes. As a consequence of the investigation that proved the FIFA officials guilty, the then president, Sepp Blatter, was compelled to step down from his position and a series of new and stricter regulations was imposed on the format to get rid of the corruption network that had been plaguing the world of FIFA secretively since decades.

• The Ronaldo Scandal of 2018

Often hailed as the king of football, he faced a major backlash from the football fraternity and his fans in the world at large when an American model, Kathryn Mayorga, pressed charges of sexual assault against Cristiano Ronaldo in 2018. Kathryn Mayorga alleged that Cristiano Ronaldo sexually assaulted her inside a hotel room in Las Vegas in 2009. Although Ronaldo denied all the allegations and called them ‘fake’, Mayorga went ahead and filed a legal complaint against Ronaldo, further claiming that Ronaldo made an attempt to bribe her in order to control the controversy that followed after her fuming allegation. Although the American model could not prove Ronaldo guilty of the offense, the allegations tarnished Ronaldo’s image for a while on a global level. 

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• The Murder of Andrés Escobar in 1994

The horrifying murder of Colombian professional football player Andres Escobar in 1994 served as a major shock to the fans of football and the world at large. While there hasn’t been any concrete evidence, Andres Escobar’s murder is assumed to be an ugly consequence of sports-related rivalries. Andres Escobar’s own goal during the FIFA World Cup led to Colombia’s defeat at the tournament, and he was heavily criticized by the supporters of the Colombian football team. After the unfortunate early exit of the Colombian football team, Andres Escobar was shot with a gun in his hometown Medellín. The sudden tragic news of Andres Escobar’s death was mourned by his fans throughout the world, and it also acted as a repugnant revelation of the deathly outrage that dominated the game on a global scale.