Biggest Scandals in Football

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From match-fixing to drugs, you can find some very dirty things in football’s history. Some of them have affected only one player, while in other cases whole leagues had been manipulated.  Let’s take a look at the biggest scandals in football.  

Probably the worst thing that could happen in football is fixing the games’ results through the referees, players or other club members. It just kills the joy of the game, and fans lose their love for football. Of course, the tension in a team due to cheating can’t be easy to deal with, while the usage of drugs is never forgiven. Just like scoring an own goal in the Columbian team, as we can see it in poor Andres Escobar’s sample. But the biggest scandal in football was leading to the very top of the main football organization when FIFA executives accepted bribes from future hosts of the World Cups. 

Bribery and match-fixing are the biggest scandals in football

In the last 10 years, we could hear more and more scandals happening at FIFA, the world’s top football organization. In 2015 seven FIFA officials were arrested by the FBI and 7 others have been charged with corruption, money laundering and criminal mismanagement including FIFA vice president Jack Warner. He has resigned after allegations that he and presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam tried to bribe Caribbean members. FIFA president Sepp Blatter didn’t survive the scandal either and resigned only a few days after his reappointment. 

Accusations also emerged regarding the future hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup. Apparently a FIFA executive committee member was offered money for his vote for the 2018 World Cup. But in spite of all these scandals, Russia organized the World Cup in 2018 and Qatar will do the same in 2022. Hopefully, there won’t be anything overshadowing this year’s European Championship. You can find all bets for the tournament at 1xBet. Read our prediction here. 

One of the biggest scandals in football happened in one of the most organized countries, Germany. Robert Hoyzer referee was manipulating the results of certain games in lower leagues and in the German Cup. Thanks to his work, his partner, Croatian Ante Sapina has managed to win a huge amount with his bets. While in Italy in 2006 clubs got involved in cheating, as they selected their own referees in the same aim, to fix the matches. As it was also announced by online sportsbooks news in Italy, several top clubs were involved, like AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio. But Juventus got the worst punishment, they were relegated to the second-tier league, Serie B as a result of the scandal.

Sex scandals and cheater footballers

Less serious but more widely known scandals are the different sex scandals of famous football players. Surely everyone has heard about the affairs of Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs or Ashley Cole. They were all on the front pages due to their unfaithfulness, but John Terry’s sin was even bigger. He had an affair with the wife of his teammate, Wayne Bridge. They couldn’t play together after, Bridge resigned from the English team, while Terry lost his captaincy. We shouldn’t see similar things from current English captain, Harry Kane, who can lead his team to victory at the Euro 2020. England has the odds of 5.00 to win the tournament at 1xBet.  

But Christiano Ronaldo also got into trouble last year, when an American woman claimed that he raped her in 2009. The case was dropped due to the lack of evidence, but the whole thing didn’t do too much good for the Portuguese star’s fame. Luckily his play didn’t suffer and he kept scoring goals for Juventus. Online gambling sites in Italy are offering the smallest odds for Juve’s win this season as well. But Ronaldo might leave the club at the end of the season. 

Drug cases

Unfortunately football players like other celebrities, often can’t handle the fame and relying on different drugs. A great example of this is Diego Maradona who’s had cocaine issues for many years. He was also sent home from the 1994 World Cup after testing positive on a drug test. 

But there were many more players testing positive on drug tests, like Juventus player Edgar Davids. He tested positive for a banned steroid just like other Dutch players, Jaap Stam and Frank de Boer. Adrian Mutu was using cocaine and sacked by Chelsea after they found it out. While Manchester United player Rio Ferdinand got an eight-month ban for skipping a drug test. Luckily the focus is more on football now in the Premier League, and in the other top leagues. You can find all the games to bet on at 1xBet. 

To end our list here is a shocking story. The worst football scandal happened in Columbia, which was also related to drugs indirectly. During the World Cup in 1994, Columbian defender Andres Escobar scored an own goal. It is an honest mistake that anyone can make, but Escobar paid with his life for it. A bodyguard of a drug cartel admitted his murder which might have been arranged by the cartel due to losing lost their bets after Escobar’s error. It was the biggest scandal in the country, whose reputation is still suffering after this incident.