Football transcends all barriers; it offers a beacon of hope to many around the world and brings people together like no other sport. Simply watching vociferous crowds bounce around in filled stadia around the globe gives you a glimpse into how tremendous the support everywhere is and how important the beautiful game is to many.
Yet it has a much darker side that rears its ugly head from time to time. Match-fixing, tax-evasions, favouritism, nepotism and many more scandals are prevalent at both the international scene and at the grass-root level.
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The recently exposed FIFA scandal exposed corruption at every level in football’s highest governing organisation, with the chief purveyors, Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter, banned for 6 years. Look into any of the South American footballing federations and similar trends crop up to make it abundantly clear that there are some serious issues that need to be tackled.
Quite often, players end up getting caught up in this vicious cycle, engaging in activities that could dent the legacy that they have been working so hard towards on the footballing pitch.
Here is our countdown for top 10 most corrupt footballers;
#10 Giuseppe Signori
Signori was a fairly remarkable striker for all of the clubs he played for; scoring 283 goals in 541 career league appearances and winning the Serie A top scorer award on 3 separate occasions. He also scored 12 goals for the Italian national team and was a part of the squad that finished runners-up in the 1994 World Cup.
His career wouldn’t see the type of honours that a goalscorer of his ability should be able to boast of, and even his national team career was affected by Arrigo Sacchi not trusting him enough to give him his favoured striker role.
Signori entered the shady world of betting after his retirement from football. He was arrested in June 2011 for his part in a match-fixing and betting scandal that was being dubbed as Calcioscommesse, along with 15 other people. The verdict from the case saw him banned from any footballing activity for the next 5 years and another scandal marred the name of Italian football.
#9 Paul Breitner
Breitner had a fairly extraordinary footballing career and was one of the top midfielders in the 1970/80s. He won both the European Championships and the World Cup with West Germany, forming a formidable unit with Franz Beckenbauer and Berti Vogts.
He is also one of four footballers – along with Pele, Vava and Zinedine Zidane – to have scored in two separate World Cup finals. His club career also saw him win multiple league titles and cups with the likes of Bayern Munich and Real Madrid and finish runners-up in the Ballon D’Or.
Breitner’s stellar reputation was tainted – along with a majority of the other players’ in both the teams – after West Germany’s group game against Austria in the 1982 FIFA World Cup. Before the game, Algeria looked set to qualify for the next stage of their first ever World Cup, having played their last game the day before.
But a 1-0 win for West Germany would mean that both, they and Austria, would safely go through and Algeria would go home. It would be that the game would end in that exact scoreline, with neither team punished since it technically didn’t break any rule.
Karma would eventually see the West Germans lose in the final to Italy, but nonetheless, it left a sour taste in everyone’s mouths.
#8 Ander Herrera
After a slow start to life in Manchester under Louis van Gaal, Herrera seems to have finally found a home in a defensive midfield role under Jose Mourinho.
The Spaniard came through the ranks of Real Zaragoza’s academy, helping the team return and cement their place in La Liga, playing alongside the likes of now Atleti captain, Gabi, in the middle of the park. In 2015, his time with the club came under scrutiny after it was revealed that Zaragoza may have fixed their 2-1 win over Levante in 2011; this was the game that had guaranteed their continued stay in the Spanish top-flight.
The Levante players were allegedly paid an eye-watering sum of €965,000 to lose the match, and Gabi had €85,000 deposited in his bank account for similar purposes. If found to have colluded in the deal, Herrera could face up to 4 years in prison and a fine of more than 5 million euros.
#7 Paolo Rossi
Before the Calciopoli scandal rocked Italian football in 2006, match-fixing was prevalent in the country in the 80’s as well, with the Totonero scandal affecting matches in Serie A and Serie B in 1980. Seven clubs were handed out punishments as a result, including the likes of Milan and Lazio, and prominent individuals as well, most notably star striker, Paolo Rossi.
Rossi was playing for Perugia at the time and was initially handed a three-year suspension, which was eventually reduced to two – just in time for the 1982 World Cup. At one point in time, he was the world’s most expensive player, with Juventus immediately snapping him up once his ban had been lifted.
He was drafted into the Azzurri squad despite being completely unfit in the beginning of a disastrous start to their World Cup campaign.
Persistence with the striker would eventually pay off for the Italians, with the striker bagging six goals in total – including the opening goal against West Germany in the final – and he would go on to win the tournament’s golden boot. His performances at the World Cup would also see him win the 1982 Ballon D’Or.
#6 Bruce Grobbelaar
The Zimbabwean is arguably the greatest goalkeeper to have ever played for Liverpool, making 628 appearances for the Reds and winning six league titles, three FA Cups, three League Cups, a European Cup and a UEFA Super Cup. His athletic ability and eccentric style of play saw him become a fan favourite with the Merseyside club.
Grobbelaar was playing for Southampton in 1994 when The Sun accused him of match-fixing during his time at Liverpool to benefit a betting syndicate; he was caught on videotape taking money to voluntarily throw a game.
Grobbelaar however, denied taking the bribe, claiming that he was playing along in the video so he could get enough evidence to go to the police.
Two successive trials both saw the jury unable to agree on a verdict and he, along with the other co-defendants in the case were cleared in November 1997. He then proceeded to sue The Sun for libel, winning £85,000 in the case.
The Sun would then go to challenge the verdict in the House of Lords; where Grobbelaar was found guilty of some level of dishonesty and had his award slashed to £1. To compound his misery, he was also ordered to pay The Sun’s legal expenses, amounting to £500,000, and went bankrupt as a result.
#5 Andrea Masiello
Currently plying his trade for Atalanta, the defender has been a major cog in the side that is flying high at fifth spot in Serie A. While he has had a less than exemplary career in terms of top honours or anything that would set him apart as a top-notch footballer, the events prior to his transfer to Atalanta in 2011 saw him become one of the most notorious names in the game.
On the final day of the 2011 season, he scored an own-goal for his then club, Bari, in the derby against Lecce, adding salt into the wounds of their already confirmed relegation, by handing their fierce rivals a victory and cementing their place in the top-flight instead.
Following an investigation in 2012, it was determined that he had scored the own goal on purpose. He even admitted to the investigators that he had been offered €50,000 to score the own goal, with some reports suggesting it might even have been as high as €300,000.
Masiello was subsequently handed a 26-month ban and a 22 month suspended jail sentence.
#4 Javier Mascherano
Mascherano's career at Liverpool and Barcelona has seen him become one of the most decorated footballers of all time, becoming one of the best defensive midfielders in the world at Liverpool and then going on to win every possible club honour at the Camp Nou.
His career though, has been marred with accusations of tax evasions. Argentina’s second most capped player of all time, Mascherano’s first two years with the Blaugrana saw him dodge nearly €1.5 million in taxes.
In an attempt to get the case over and done with, Mascherano paid back the money in 2015, along with €200,000 worth of interest. He also appeared in court to admit to the charges, claiming that he’d received bad financial advice and had never actually intended to break the law.
He was subsequently slapped with a €800,000 fine and a 1 year suspended prison sentence.
#3 Jean-Jacques Eydelie
Olympic Marseille signed the French midfielder in the summer of 1992, to reinforce a squad that was chasing their fifth consecutive league title. Eydelie, to his credit, had a fantastic debut season along the likes of Marcel Desailly, Didier Deschamps and Rudi Voller.
Their star-studded squad raced to the French title and then went on to beat Fabio Capello’s AC Milan to win the inaugural Champions League.
Ahead of Marseille’s final league game against Valenciennes, Eydelie was ordered by chairman, Bernard Tapie, to bribe three opposition players (Jorge Burruchaga, Christophe Robert and Jacques Glassman) to go easy on the French giants – to make sure they were injury free going into their mammoth clash with AC Milan.
Eydelie negotiated the deal with the Valenciennes players, which included former teammates of his, in a deal that was believed to amount to £30,000. Once the allegations came to light, Marseille were stripped of their domestic title and Eydelie was handed a one year ban by FIFA, along with a suspended jail sentence.
#2 Jackie Sheldon
Now we turn the clock back to the early 20th century, at a time when the footballing landscape was vastly different from what it is now, and yet some problems seem to have, even now, stood the test of time.
Manchester United vs Liverpool has always been a fiercely contested rivalry, but back in the 1914/15 season, the fixture was embroiled in controversy. United were desperate to avoid relegation, while Liverpool were safe and had nothing to play for.
United would go on to beat their arch-rivals 2-0, with the Merseysiders cutting oddly subdued figures the entire match. Before long, reports surfaced suggesting that large bets had been placed on a 2-0 United win and a subsequent FA investigation found three United players and four Liverpool players had colluded to fix the game.
The leader of the ring was Liverpool midfielder, Jackie Sheldon, who had previously also played for United. He’d expected the league to be suspended after the end of the season due to the World War, and thought that the conspiracy was unlikely to be looked into; however, he was wrong and all the involved players were banned for life.
#1 Michel Platini
Platini as a player, was one of the most technically-gifted and talented players of all time, with the Frenchman having won a plethora of both club and individual honours. Platini used to hold the record for having won the most number of Ballon D’Ors with three, before Messi recently overtook the feat.
He won the European Championships in 1984 with the French national team and also a total of three league titles, a European Cup, a UEFA Super Cup and the Intercontinental Cup as a player, before eventually heading on to become the President of UEFA, European football’s highest governing organisation.
It was here that allegations of corruption initially began to surface, with both Platini and then FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, placed under formal investigation by the FIFA’s independent ethics committee for so-called ‘disloyal payments.’ He would be found guilty and banned from any activity pertaining to football for six years.
He was also later found to be involved in the 2015 Greek football scandal. The final nail in the coffin would be his name appearing in the infamous Panama Papers leak of April 2016, with Platini, now having next to no chance to make any sort of re-entry into the sport that he gave so much for.
