It’s probably as old as the game itself, but
fixing, bribes and betting scandals have been around forever and a day. With
the beautiful game the means of fixing a result
are many, with opportunities available for players and referees alike. Be it a
result, number of goals or dubious sending-off, most decisions seem annoying
but innocent however some have a sinister undercurrent.
A worldwide game, often with a
worldwide problem. Were there’s greed and avarice among officials or those susceptible to a bribe they will always be
cheating.
There are a lot of
things outsiders say about League of Ireland Football, but bribery (I think or
should I say hope) is not one of them.
Now don't get me wrong, there have
been some referee's throughout the ages in this league that have stunned me
with their level of ineptitude or bias towards some teams but you put it down to
the guy not being good enough to officiate at that level.
However George Washington
once wrote ‘Few men have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder’ and as
long as there are weak sportspersons within the game of football, or any sport,
there will always be cheating of one form or another - check out the infamous 'penalty' for Anderlecht v Nottingham Forest from '84 that was well documented in the ref taking a bribe.
In India
and the sub continent billions of rupees are bet on the game. It seems the main
source of corruption in soccer is South-East Asia, and particularly Singapore.
The Asian obsession with European and especially English soccer is startling:
The entire population of the British Isles is easily dwarfed by the numbers in
China watching any Manchester United game, even though a 7:45 pm kick-off at
Old Trafford is 3:45 am in Shanghai, and the club has one fanzine selling
35,000 copies a month—in Thailand.
So here
are a few cases off bribes that might raise an eyebrow or two!
FUR CRAZY
In 1996 officials from Dynamo Kiev offered
Spanish referee Antonio Lopez Nieto a selection of fur coats worth over £20,000
to swing a Champions League tie v Panathinaikos which Kiev eventually won 1-0.
The club of course denied the allegations but it fell on deaf ears. In an
historic case, the Russians were found guilty and thrown out of the competition
for three years. Several appeals later UEFA gave in and reduced the ban to just
one season. Lopez Nieto is now retired but rumour has it he still wears his
matching furs with his wife whilst going for the morning papers each day.
LOVE FOR SALE
In 1994 Italian club Torino were accused of
supplying three prostitutes to a Belgian referee and linesman before the second
leg of a Uefa Cup tie match against AEK Athens. The first leg was a draw with
Torino winning the second leg. The Italian team claimed the three women were
“interpreters” and believe it or not UEFA believed it and cleared Torino of any
wrong doing. I know a few of my friends travelling to Amsterdam looking for
“interpreters” to help them with the language next week!
TICKET TO BRIBE
In 1996, Fernando Barata, the former chairman of
Portuguese club Farnese accused Porto chairman Jorge Pinto Da Costa of paying
for a £3,000 holiday for a referee and his family. Da Costa was also accused of
offering to bribe a Romanian ref with £30,000 for a 1984 Cup Winners Cup tie
against Aberdeen (which Porto won.) Da Costa called the claims “ridiculous and absurd”
and said the paid holiday was “simply an accounting error”. With some strong
evidence of the table to convict the Porto chairman of bribery –UEFA stepped in,
and guess what...... yep...all charges were dropped.
FILL YOUR BOOTS
In 1989 former Newcastle player Tommy Cassidy
told the Sunday People that when he was manager of APEOL in Cyprus, the club
officials rigged a home leg of a 1986 European cup tie against HJK Helsinki. He
said “Our club openly entertained the Bulgarian referee and his linesmen the
night before the game. They were each given a free meal, drinks and we also
supplied ladies for all three officials.” And boy did it work. In the match the
Bulgarian referee disallowed two perfectly good Helsinki goals and gave APOEL,
in Cassidy’s words “The most diabolical penalty ever seen in the history of the
game. So much so it made me sick to my stomach when I found out after”. Of
course Tommy kept his mouth shut; the Bulgarians went home happy whilst poor
Helsinki went out of the European Cup!
FANCY A SAUSAGE SON?
In 1999 a Romanian football team demanded a
refund after apparently having bought a player for a transfer fee of 15 kilos
of pork sausages. Defender Marius Cioara retired a day later saying he could
not face any more sausage related taunts at his expense. Cioara, who played for
second division team UT Arad, was apparently sold to fourth division Regal
Hornia for the sausage meat. However Cioara said this was simply a bribe
offered to him at first and was actually sold for 4,300 Leu (Romania’s
currency), the equivalent of 1000 British pounds.
However a spokesman for Regal Hornia confirmed,
'We haven’t that sort of money. We gave up the team's sausage allowance for a
week to secure him, and we were confident it would be worth it. 'However, a day
after the deal was leaked to the media, Cioara announced he was giving up
football and had decided to flee the country.
Ananova the News agency reports that he said,
'The sausage taunts all got too much. They were joking but I would have got
more from the Germans and making sausage jokes was a huge insult. I have
decided to go to Spain where I have got a job on a farm.'
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