From the stadium to the courts: the great scandals of world football

BarcelonaOn July 18, 1921, the police had to charge outside the Chicago courthouse to push back the crowd trying to get inside. The main courtroom was packed with people so worked up that the judge threatened to clear the room every few minutes if silence was not maintained. It was the most high-profile case in years in the United States: eight Chicago White Sox baseball players were on trial, accused of deliberately losing the 1919 World Series in exchange for money offered by a mobster who wanted to win money betting. It was as if Barça or Madrid players were being judged for having accepted money to lose a Cup final. Non-sporting scandals have been part of the day-to-day life of professional sports for over a century.

"One of the things I learned quickly is that sports journalists often spend more time talking about lawyers and trials than about sports," said, half-jokingly, the British journalist Simon Kuper, author over the last few decades of various books on the relationship between sport and politics. The last few days have made this clear again. While Madrid tries to muddy the waters of what is known as the Negreira case with UEFA, trusting that everything will end up in court, in England everyone is talking about the future of Manchester City after an independent commission concluded that the club breached Premier League financial rules in a "serious and systematic" manner between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons. City will file appeals maintaining that it is innocent, to avoid sanctions that could mean relegation to the Second Division or losing some of the titles won during that period.

Cradle of professional football, England has already become accustomed to seeing how many of the men who try to dominate the league move along the border between what is legal and what is not. In fact, the birth of British professional football stems from an illegality, when different clubs in the north of England began to cheat to be able to have the best players in an era when they were amateurs and were not paid. The rules, established by young men from good families educated in universities who considered it unethical to charge for playing sports, were flouted by businessmen who offered footballers a good salary and work in their businesses, whether factories or shops. Jobs that, in reality, did not exist: they were paid to play for their football clubs. The first high-profile case would be that of Fergus Suter, a Scottish player who in 1878 signed for the English club Darwen and for Blackburn Rovers in 1880. In both cases, they offered him a job in a factory where he never went to work. In truth, he was paid to train and play. When the deception became evident, the subsequent debate led to the acceptance of the professionalization of football, but with rules that tied salaries to club revenues. But the businessmen, who were beginning to understand that money and power were moving through football, were not satisfied. In 1919, for example, a case occurred that caused great media attention when George Cripps, a member of the Leeds coaching staff, explained to the press that illegal payments had been made to players. Cripps, angry because he was being pushed out to sign a renowned coach like Herbert Chapman, ended up accepting financial compensation in exchange for his silence, but it was already too late. Leeds lost its status and, in fact, would end up disappearing, and was refounded under the current name of Leeds United. The essence of the case was relatively similar to the Manchester City case now: businessmen with money who are looking for ways to bypass the rules to be able to invest what they have.

The list of scandals in sports is too long. And, in general, they could be grouped into two categories. One would be when an outside actor manipulates the game, almost always to make money from betting, as was the case with baseball in 1919 or a similar case from 1915 with Manchester United and Liverpool players who accepted money to fix a result on the last day of the league. The other group of scandals would be when a club's managers decide to cheat in order to win; whether it is winning matches or earning money, or both. If in City's case what is being judged is whether laws have been broken in order to have more money and sign better players, on other occasions the crimes directly affect what happens on the pitch.

The Juventus case

In Italy, they have experienced some very high-profile cases in this regard. In the 1979-80 season, the police arrested dozens of players involved in an illegal betting ring, a case that ended with the administrative relegation to the Second Division of Milan and Lazio. Decades later, the case known as Calciopoli would arrive, which would end with the first and only relegation of Juventus to the Second Division, a relegation decreed in the courts upon considering that the club's CEO, Luciano Moggi, had created a network in order to influence refereeing during two seasons from 2004 to 2006. According to the investigation, Moggi had the power to decide which referees could officiate certain matches and pressured them so that important players from rival teams would be sent off when they had to play against Juve. His network also affected other clubs, which would have helped Moggi in exchange for also receiving favorable refereeing treatment. Four clubs, Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Reggina, were sanctioned.

In France, the most remembered case is that of Olympique de Marseille. In 1993, the club owned by businessman Bernard Tapie was playing the Champions League final against Milan. Just before, they had a league match against the modest Valenciennes, in which they had to win if they wanted to take the league title. Tapie offered money to the rivals so they would agree to lose and not play too aggressively, so as not to injure the Marseille players while thinking about the European final. A player, Jacques Glassmann, reported what had happened and Marseille would be condemned to lose their category and would lose the 1993 league title. The Champions League, however, they did win.

Turkey and Portugal

In almost every country, they have seen how justice determines the future of cheating clubs. In Turkey, right now, they are investigating whether a Galatasaray executive bet a lot of money that their team's goalkeeper, the Uruguayan Muslera, would score a goal in a league match, as indeed happened. The money won would have been invested to help sign a new goalscorer, the Nigerian Osimhen. In the same country, in 2013, Fenerbahçe was sanctioned with two years without playing in Europe for fixing the result of the 2011 Cup final. In Portugal, the Apito Dourado case judged Porto and Boavista executives from 2008 to 2010, accusing them of corruption and attempting to bribe referees. Boavista was sent to the Second Division and Porto was fined with money and a points deduction.

The Rangers case

The Manchester City case could also end with an administrative relegation, even though the club led by the Catalan Ferran Soriano, with Arab capital, insists on its innocence and will fight in court to prove it. The club is accused of flouting economic rules that exist to protect clubs. The regulations, deep down, aim to ensure that clubs have different sources of income and do not depend solely on the pocket of a single owner. Depending on a single owner carries a risk: if they get tired of the toy or lose money, the club can end up disappearing and punishing fans and employees. The most significant case was the disappearance of one of the two most famous clubs in Scottish football, Glasgow Rangers. Founded in 1872, it disappeared in 2012 after years of mismanagement. But it was not just about the debts. The club was also caught breaking the rules, as it paid money – often in cash – to players and hid it from the authorities, whom it told that the wage bill was lower. Once it was discovered, it was sanctioned and had to face the payment of taxes corresponding to the unpaid salaries, a fact that ended up sinking the club, which was refounded in the Scottish Fourth Division.

The list of scandals linked to football never ends. And, in fact, often the protagonists have been those who should defend fair play, such as the FIFA officials. This, however, is another story that could serve as a script for a series where lawyers are more prominent than players.