There has been no shortage of scandals in the beautiful game's long history, with stories of corruption, match fixing, bribery and doping surfacing every few years and reminding us that the game we love can also have a dark side.
While plenty of scandals have rocked the football world in the years gone by, we decided to find 7 of the biggest football scandals in recent history.
#1 The FIFA corruption scandal
The biggest sporting corruption scandal of all time was revealed in May last year when Swiss police raided a luxury hotel in Zurich and arrested seven FIFA executives. Working with the FBI, the arrests came after years of alleged corruption by the world football governing body, who awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar despite the rich nation having no footballing culture or history.
A further 14 current and former FIFA officials were then arrested due to “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted” corruption, and in December, 16 more FIFA officials were arrested in the same hotel for “racketeering, conspiracy and corruption.”
The arrests ended the careers of former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini, who were both banned for eight years from all football related activities. The two were found guilty of breaches surrounding a £1.3 million payment made to Platini in 2011.
FIFA as an organisation has been accused of 47 different offences by US prosecutors, who took charge of the investigation after discovering that US bank accounts were used to transfer illegal funds.
US authorities have charged 14 defendants with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering and claim that FIFA officials took part “in a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer.”
According to the former general secretary of Concacaf, which operates North, Central America and Caribbean football, FIFA officials agreed to accept bribes in order to select South Africa for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. He said another co-conspirator received a bribe to vote for Morocco in the 1998 World Cup which went to France, while he and others accepted bribes for broadcast deals and others rights.
The money involved in the corruption scandal is huge. The FBI says that marketing executives paid well over $150 million in bribes for marketing rights to football tournaments, which does not include other alleged corruption around the world.
With FIFA making $4 billion off the last world cup, we expect more details of corruption will emerge once those involved in the scandal are extradited to the USA for court proceedings.
#2 The 2006 ‘Calciopoli’ scandal
Arguably the most high-profile sporting scandal in history, the football world was rocked in 2006 when it was revealed that several top Serie A clubs had been involved in match-fixing.
The scandal was uncovered by Italian police who alleged that teams such as Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina had been rigging games by selecting favourable referees. Juventus, who were the current champions and had won the league in 2005 and 2006, were relegated to Serie B and stripped of their titles.
While AC Milan did not receive such a punishment, Fiorentina and Lazio were also deducted points and relegated to the second division. The scandal had major implications on Italian football and continues to remain a talking point whenever the state of Italian football is mentioned.
The scandal saw the resignation of several high-profile officials, including the entire Juventus board of directors and the president of the Italian Football Federation.
Despite being relegated, Juventus managed to hold onto the majority of their star players and were promptly promoted back to Serie A after winning Serie B in their first season. The side suffered, however, and did not win a league title for several years after the scandal.
#3 The 2009 case of Nigerian age fraud
Age fraud has been a consistent problem in football for a long time and the topic again re-emerged in 2014 after Lazio signed 17-year-old Cameroonian midfielder Joseph Minala. According to the Senegalese media, the player was actually 41 years old and was just one of many African players who claimed they were younger in order to gain a competitive advantage.
While the claim was strongly denied by both the player and his club, age fraud in African football has been a problem for many years with Nigeria having the worst reputation for hiding the age of its players.
In 1988, Nigeria was banned from all FIFA competitions after it was revealed that three of the players in the country's Olympic squad had different birth dates compared to dates used in previous tournaments.
But the biggest case of age fraud in Nigeria was discovered just six years ago in the build up to the 2009 Under-17 World Cup. After FIFA announced that it would be taking new measures to test the age of players in the tournament, Nigeria dropped 15 players from its squad.
The prevalence of age fraud in the country has been admitted by several Nigerian officials since, and in 2010 the former head of the Nigerian Football Federation said in regards to age fraud, “We always cheats, it’s a fact”.
According to Nigerian blogger George Omonya, the problem of age fraud in the country stems from the relative simpleness of changing a player’s age. The blogger said that anyone can walk into any immigration office and for a small fee, receive a new passport with a new name and birthplace. This can all be done within a few hours.
While it’s unlikely many players within Europe are actually older than they state, it remains a massive topic of conversation and is something clubs are constantly aware of when scouting new players.
#4 The 2005 Bundesliga match-fixing scandal
German football came under huge scrutiny in 2005 when it was discovered that a second division referee had been match fixing and betting on matches in the 2nd Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal and the third-division Regionalliga.
Considered the biggest controversy in German football history, disgraced referee Robert Hoyzer was banned from football for life and received a two years prison sentence after it was discovered he had received payments to manipulate four football matches.
Ousted by four fellow referees who had their suspicions about Hoyzer, police arrested the referee who admitted his guilt and provided the names of several others involved. The surveillance of several suspects led to the arrest of a number of players and officials, including three Hertha Berlin players who were involved in an unlikely 3-2 loss to a third division side in the DFB-Pokal. In what was an extremely suspicious incident, one of the players managed to concede a crucial own goal in the 80th minute just four minutes after be subbed on. The players were all known associates of a Croatian gambling syndicate, which was connected to organised crime.
The scandal attracted a large amount of media attention, and while no Bundesliga clubs were involved, the unwanted attention came as an embarrassment for Germany, which was to hold the World Cup the very next year.
#5 The 2013 English match-fixing scandal
Much like doping, match fixing is scarcely talked about in football (particularly in England) despite it being a constant topic of concern in other sports. So it came as a massive shock to England in 2013 when the biggest match-fixing scandal in the nation's history was revealed.
After investigations by The Sun and The Daily Telegraph, six people were arrested for their involvement in a “suspected international illegal betting syndicate”. Former Reading F.C and Portsmouth F.C player Sam Sodjie was one of the main figures behind the investigation, who claimed that he could organise players in the Football League Championship to intentionally get booked in exchange for cash. He said that he himself had received a red card for punching a player in exchange for £70,000 while playing in Ligue 1.
The former player also claimed that he would be fixing matches at the 2014 FIFA World Cup and could also fix English Premier League games. He added that he had paid £30,000 to a Championship player to receive a yellow card.
As part of a separate investigation by The Telegraph, seven people were arrested after a series of undercover meetings with a Singaporean match-fixer revealed that two English football matches were the targets of a betting scam, where the fixer would tell players how many goals needed to be scored in the game.
The fixer said that the rigging of the results would see gamblers in Asia make hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of the information. In order to rig the games, the fixer said he “controlled” certain teams in Europe and would “buy” referees to influence the results.
To prove that he wasn’t lying, the fixer accurately predicted the amount of goals that would be scored in a match the next day, while also accurately predicting what minute a certain player would receive a yellow card.
Following the investigation, two Singaporean businessmen were given five years in prison for trying to fix a match between AFC Wimbledon and Dagenham and Redbridge, while player Michael Boateng received 18 months. Former Premier League striker DJ Campbell was also one of the first six people arrested, but did not receive any punishment.
While no Premier League clubs were involved in the scandal, the identities of some clubs involved in the match-fixing have not been revealed due to an ongoing investigation. It is believed that the cases may be part of a larger match-fixing syndicate throughout Asia, with the biggest revelations possibly still to come.
#6 The 2009 European football betting scandal
Described by UEFA as “the biggest match-fixing scandal ever to hit Europe”, the 2009 European football betting scandal was an attempt to manipulate results in around two hundred matches including games in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia, Turkey, Hungary, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Austria.
The scandal also involved twelve qualification matches in the UEFA Europa League and three in the UEFA Champions League.
Investigations into the match-fixing were initially revealed by UEFA which said it would be bringing charges against Macedonian side FK Pobeda, who were found guilty of match-fixing in a tie against Armenian club Pyunik. As a result of the fraud, which was discovered through tapping the phones of organised crime, the club was banned for eight years from all European competition, while club president Aleksander Zabrcanec and former captain Nikolce Zdravevski were both banned from European football for life.
Fifteen people were arrested in Germany for the fraud, while a further two were arrested in Switzerland, along with the seizure of cash and property.
While 168 matches were investigated in total, it has yet to be relieved how many were actually manipulated.
At the time, UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino said: “UEFA will be demanding the harshest of sanctions before the competent courts for any individuals, clubs or officials who are implicated in this malpractice, be it under state or sports jurisdiction.”
Former UEFA president Michel Platini added that his organisation would be monitoring 27,000 fixtures the following season, however considering he was later banned for eight years following an ethics investigation by FIFA, his words can’t exact be taken seriously.
#7 Mexico’s “Chicken-Gate” drug scandal
In what was one of the few football doping cases to be reported in the mainstream media, five Mexico players who were drug tested prior to the 2011 Gold Cup were found to have the banned substance clenbuterol in their system. The five players were all found guilty of taking the drug, which is often used by bodybuilders and celebrities to shed body fat.
But despite being found guilty, the players claimed the reason for the positive drug test was due to tainted meat, as the substance is often illegally used to speed up growth and increase muscle mass in cattle.
While the five players did not win an appeal against their ban, the Mexican team still managed to win the Gold Cup largely thanks to the heroics of Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez and Giovani Dos Santos.
After a further four Mexican players were found to have clenbuterol in their system during the Under-17 World Cup, an investigation was launched by FIFA which found more than 100 players taking part in the tournament tested positive for the drug. FIFA’s chief medical officer said he had “not seen anything like it” in his 20 years in the role.
Mexico went on to win the Under-17 World Cup and none of the team's players were found to have the substance in their system as the previous bans meant the team was only allowed to eat fish and vegetables.
While it’s still unknown if the initial five players found guilty intentionally took the substance or not, the “tainted meat” excuse has since been used by several athletes found guilty of using the drug, including Tour de France champion Alberto Contador and Australian Rules Footballers Josh Thomas and Lachie Keeffe, who were both banned for two years after testing positive to the drug.
