Top 10 Football Controversies of 2014

In a few days we draw curtains on yet another eventful year in the World of Football and the year was made extra special due to the World Cup.We saw Germany getting crowned as the new World Champions, we saw Real Madrid win the prestigious La Decima and we even saw Borussia Dortmund end the year in the relegation zone.Even with all the highs and lows we saw throughout the year, it would be incomplete without the many controversies that we saw happen on and off the pitch.So here is a rewind of the top 10 controversies from the year 2014.Honourable Mentions: Schweinsteiger insults Borussia Dortmund in public, Assou Ekotto head butts own teammate at the World Cup and Mario Balotelli gets suspended for racists post on Social Media.

#10 Schalkes controversial win over Sporting in the Champions League

Schalke were given a penalty for this block by Silva

Schalke and Sporting were grouped with Chelsea for this season’s Champions’ League group stage. Chelsea were in top form and this meant that Schalke and Sporting had to fight it out between themselves for the privilege to play in the knockout stages.

Sporting took the lead in the game, but were reduced to 10 men and soon went 3-1 down in the game. The Portuguese club showed immense resilience to level the game at 3-3 with just minutes to go in the game.

The game had gone to injury time and Schalke were awarded a controversial penalty after the referee thought Sporting’s Jonathan Silva blocked Huntelaar’s shot with his hand. Replays showed that Silva used his head and the ball did not make any contact with his hand.

Choupo-Moting converted the resultant penalty and Schalke won the game 4-3.

Sporting demanded a rematch and even asked UEFA to change the game result to a draw and award one point each for both clubs. The result stayed the same, but Sporting extracted revenge by defeating Schalke 4-2 in the return leg.

Eventually Sporting finished third in the group with seven points behind second placed Schalke who had eight. Had the penalty not been awarded and the game finished level in Germany, then Sporting would have qualified for the knockout stage of the Champions League and Schalke would have played in the Europa League.

#9 Kieran Gibbs case of mistaken identity

Gibbs was sent off in place of Chamberlain

Arsene Wenger’s 1000th game in charge of Arsenal was against Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, just like his 500th game.

But the game was one that the Wenger will want to forget as the evening at Stamford Bridge turned out to be a disaster.

Arsenal went two behind after just seven minutes before an Eden Hazard penalty, in the wake of some bizarre events, put the game out of Arsenal’s reach. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain handled Hazard’s shot and parried it out and the Blues were rightfully given a penalty by referee Andre Marriner. But the referee made a blunder by sending off Kieran Gibbs instead of Chamberlain after a case of mistaken identities.

Oscar scored one goal each on either side of the break before substitute Mohamed Salah scored his first goal for Chelsea to put a lid on the proceedings.

The red card to Gibbs was rescinded and Chamberlain avoided retrospective action for his original offense.

#8 Alan Padrew Headbutts David Meyler

We’ve seen players get involved in physical confrontations and we’ve even seen managers do the same (refer to next slide), but we rarely see a manager get into a physical battle with a player of the opposite team.

Newcastle’s manager Alan Padrew thought, ‘enough is enough, I’m going to do what my players are not doing’ and did something stupid when Newcastle were playing Hull City last season.

Padrew was under immense pressure following Newcastle’s poor run of form

Hull City player David Meyler was ready to take a throw in, when for some reason Alan Padrew went into Meyler with his head. Referee, Kevin Friend, immediately sent Padrew to the stands and he was fined by his club for his actions. Further action was taken by the FA who gave Padrew a three game stadium ban and a further four game touchline ban.

The current Newcastle manager is no stranger to controversies as he has been involved with incidents involving other managers like Manuel Pellegrini, Arsene Wenger and Sam Allardyce.

#7 Wenger and Mourinhos touchline spat

Mourinho and Wenger having a go at each other

Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho are very famous for their war of words during press conferences even when the two teams are not facing each other.

The duo have a history of heated arguments and slating in the press, and the situation was intensified manifold after Chelsea’s 6-0 win over Arsenal last season when Wenger was taking charge of Arsenal for the 1000th time.

So when Chelsea and Arsenal faced each other this season, many people expected sparks to fly, but the two managers took things to a whole new level.

Mourinho was not happy when Chelsea defender Gary Cahill was warned for a rough tackle on Alexis Sanchez and the Portuguese approached the fourth referee by the pitch. For some reason this did not go well with the Arsenal manager who came forward and pushed Mourinho. The two were involved in push and shove situation and had to be pulled apart by officials and other staff.

Maybe Mourinho’s words in the press finally got through to Arsene Wenger!

#6 Barcelonas transfer ban

Barcelona were involved in a transfer controversy last season as well

Last year Barcelona were the center of a transfer fiasco after Neymar’s move to the Catalan club from Santos. More transfer controversy surrounded the Catalans this year when they were given a transfer ban by FIFA.

Barcelona received a two window transfer ban for breaches relating to the international transfer of minors under the age of 18. Players aged under 18 can move to a club in a different country if their parents move there for non-footballing reasons, if they are from another nation within the European Union or European Economic Area and aged between 16 and 18, or if they live within 100km of the club.

However the ban was temporarily lifted till the end of the previous transfer window and thus gave Barcelona enough time to reinforce their squad. The Catalans purchased Luis Suarez, Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Claudio Bravo, Jeremy Mathieu and Thomas Vermaelen during this period.

The club filed an appeal to lift the ban, but it was rejected on August 20, which means that Barcelona cannot buy a player in the forthcoming transfer window in January, 2015 as well as the summer transfer window before the next season.

#5 Zuniga injures Neymar at the World Cup

Neymar was the heart of the Brazil attack at the FIFA World Cup. The Barcelona man was the creative outlet for Brazil throughout the tournament and his goals and performances guided the hosts through to the knockout stages.

In the quarter final of the tournament, the Brazilians were facing fellow South Americans and high flying Colombians.

The first blow for the Brazilians was struck when captain, Thiago Silva, was given a yellow card, which ruled him out of the next game if Brazil qualified.

Nevertheless the Brazilians were 2-1 up with just minutes left on the clock and with one substitution left, but Luiz Scolari decided against using the substitution to hold on to the lead and give Neymar some rest before the semifinals

Colombia’s Zuniga challenged Neymar for the ball, but the Colombian caught Neymar on the back and severely injured the Brazilian. Neymar was ruled out of the tournament and Zuniga was the center of heavy criticism.

Zuniga offered an apology to Neymar after the incident, which was accepted by the Brazilian and the two shared an emotional embrace few months later when these two sides faced each other in a friendly game.

#4 Legia Warsaw knocked out of Champions League for fielding ineligible player

Celtic were taken apart by Legia Warsaw over the two legs

Polish side Legia Warsaw were playing Scottish Champions, Celtic in the third round of the UEFA Champions League qualifiers.

The first leg of the game took place in Poland and the home side won the match 4-1 after coming back from a goal down to the Scottish side.

Legia looked in perfect control in the second leg and won the away leg with a score line of 2-0, meaning they advanced to the next round with an aggregate score of 6-1!

After the second leg, UEFA announced that Legia fielded an ineligible player in the second leg of the game.

Bartosz Bereszynski came on as an 86th minute substitute in the second leg, was given a three match suspension for a red card offense in the Europa League last season.

Legia believed he was free to play in the second leg as he missed the previous qualifiers against St Patrick’s Athletic as well as the first leg against Celtic. However the player was not included in Legia’s squad list submitted to UEFA for the St Patrick’s game and thus his suspension was not deemed to be served.

UEFA thus ruled the second leg to be forfeited by Legia and therefore the game was awarded 3-0 to Celtic. Celtic now progressed to the play-offs on away goals at the expense of an unlucky Legia.

The Polish side appealed to Celtic to honour fair play, but Celtic refused any discussion with them and said it was a matter left to UEFA.

Celtic were knocked out in the playoffs round and their exit was celebrated by the Legia Warsaw fans. The Polish side on the other hand were sent to the UEFA Europa League and they have qualified to the Round of 32 as group leaders and will face Ajax.

#3 The Qatar World Cup debacle

Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup amidst controversial circumstances

Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup by beating England for honour. But Qatar faced huge pressure over allegations of bribing officials to secure the honour.

In March 2014, it was discovered that CONCACAF president Jack Warner and his family were paid almost $2 million pounds from a firm linked with Qatar’s successful World Cup bid.

Four of FIFA’s primary sponsors asked for investigations regarding the allegations and FIFA vice president Jim Boyce had gone on record stating he would support a re-vote to find a new host if the allegations were proven.

Michael J Garcia investigated the issue and gave a detailed report, but it was subsequently announced that details of the report will not be made public. Only a 42 page report of the 350 page report submitted by Garcia was made public. Following this, more problems arose and even threats of UEFA quitting FIFA also came up.

Garcia eventually resigned from his post as FIFA’s ethics investigator in protest of FIFA’s conduct further fuelling the corruption allegations surrounding Qatar’s bid for the FIFA World Cup.

#2 Luis Suarez bites Chiellini

Controversy follows Luis Suarez everywhere he goes. The Uruguayan was the center of one of the most controversial incidents from the 2010 World Cup and has been the subject of two separate biting incidents after the event in South Africa.

In 2014, Suarez returned from injury, for a group stage game against England and became the hero of the nation by winning the game for his side. The final group stage game for the South Americans was against Italy and a win was crucial for Uruguay to progress to the next round.

Italy were reduced to ten men after Claudio Marchisio was sent off following a very harsh decision from the referee.

With the game level at 0-0, Luis Suarez bit Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini on the shoulder, but the incident went unnoticed by the referee and he let Suarez continue on the pitch despite Chiellini showing the referee the bite mark.

Uruguay managed to score a goal through Diego Godin and this sent them through to the next round and knocked the Italians out of the tournament.

FIFA investigated the incident and Suarez was given a four month ban from football and 10 match ban from International games. During the ban, Suarez was not even allowed inside a stadium and he was also asked to leave the Uruguay training camp for the World Cup.

#1 Serbia vs Albania - Euro qualifier

Mitrovic pulls down the flag from the drone

The match in question happened on October 14, 2014 at the Partizan Stadium in Belgrade, Serbia.

The two countries, Serbia and Albania, were grouped together for the UEFA Euro 2016 qualifier despite the fact that there were political disagreements between both countries regarding Kosovo.

Prior to the game an agreement was reached between the two football associations and UEFA to ban Albanian fans from the stadium for precautionary reasons.

During the pregame warm up, Serbian fans started hurling objects on to the Albanian players and when the Albanian National Anthem was played, the Serbian fans started shouting ‘Kill the Albanians’ and nearly drowned out the anthem with their shouting and whistling.

Fans kept on attacking the players throughout the game and in the end Serbian players had to interfere to ease the tension. In the 42nd minute, referee suspended the game after flares were thrown onto the pitch and during this time a drone carrying a pro-Albanian flag was flown into the stadium. Serbian defender, Stefan Mitrovic, reacted by pulling the flag down from the drone, but this irked certain Albanian players and they attempted to reclaim the flag from Mitrovic. This incident started a mass brawl between the two teams and soon fans joined the attack.

A mass melee attack broke out between players, fans, substitutes and officials prompting referee Martin Atkinson to lead the players off the pitch.

After 30 minutes, the game was abandoned by the referee as the Albanian players were physically and psychologically affected by the incident.

To make matters worse, UEFA declared the match as a forfeit by Albania and awarded a 3-0 win for Serbia. Serbia were deducted three points and were also ordered to play their next two home games under closed doors. In addition to this, both clubs were given a fine by UEFA.

The ruling was highly controversial as UEFA decided to award the game to Serbia, despite the violence and racism issues.