7 of the biggest football scandals in recent history
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.