Top 15 footballers players suspended for illicit activities

A footballer’s life may seem all fun and games from a fan’s point of view, but sometimes the glamour turns to darkness.

Throughout the long history of football, famous players have drifted to their low points and got into trouble for illicit activities, ranging from drug abuse and minor theft to murder, kidnapping and even terrorism.

Read on to find out if your star player has been flagged in an illegal position.

David De Gea – Chocolate-stained Rap Sheet

David de Gea is still a Manchester United player

De Gea’s fans will be glad to find out that his darkest hour didn’t lead him to anything massively grim. His petty crime made him the perfect candidate to open the way for our list.

One day, though, his all too human tendencies came to the forefront. It happened in a Tesco supermarket in the town of Altrincham. A mouth-watering Glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut was too much. De Gea fell for the £1.19 temptation, and before you know it, he already devoured it in the laughter and cheers of his friends.

Luckily for the goalkeeper, it all ended with a pinch of embarrassment.

Robert Lewandowski – Not Even Offside

Robert Lewandowski is one of the greatest goalscorers of this generation

Record-breaking striker with 41 goals last season in the Bundesliga alone, Lewandowski is another surprise addition to our soon-to-be horror-infused catalogue of shame.

His worst offside will be ruled out as a perfectly normal reaction. As captain, he had led the Polish national team to the European Championship of 2016 through a near-perfect qualifiers campaign. When the entry to the Euros was sealed after the final match, the ecstatic captain proceeded to drink champagne in large gulps on the pitch.

It would have permanently remained a trivial happening was it not for the nosy anonymous individual who reported the player to the police for drinking in public places.

Ronaldinho – The Magician Detained

Ronaldinho was a joy to watch on the football pitch

Best known for his time spent at Barcelona, where he found the net and contributed decisively to innumerable goals, Ronaldinho was at some point the definition of an ideal footballer. He could pass, shoot, dribble, and win a game on his own. His golden years were undoubtedly in Catalonia.

However, during his fifth season at Barcelona, he started drinking and allegedly used drugs too. It is said he brought Deco and a young and undeveloped Messi to those parties, which may have broken trust in his professionalism.

Fast forward to 2019, and Ronaldinho’s properties begin to be seized for unpaid taxes. Besides that, he’s still known for his alcohol-infused barbecues.

Travelling to Paraguay with his brother, he got detained by local authorities for using fake passports to cross the border. The former star and his brother were imprisoned for 5 months. In detention, he won a futsal tournament, proving he’s still got it.

This is how the downfall of a superstar looks like: from countless goals and magic on the football pitch to countless barbecues, alcohol, and futsal in prison.

Lionel Messi – Greedy for Goals, but also for Cash

Lionel Messi is arguably the greatest footballer of all time

Another Barcelona star whose name is a brand, Lionel Messi, comes to fill our list with his tax mischief. While his sportsmanship and performance are undoubted, it is hard to imagine him as an angelic figure now.

Let’s recap his achievements a bit

A record 6 Golden Boots
6 Ballon d’Or trophies
10 La Liga titles
7 Copa del Rey titles
4 Champions League titles

He broke countless records, all at Barcelona, the team where he started as a kid and played all his career, until now, of course.

According to a recent report covering over 144 footballers caught with crimes, in 2013, the legendary Messi was charged with tax evasion for an undeclared €4.1mil income resulted from sponsorships between 2007 and 2009. As the case goes, the money was redirected via tax havens Belize and Uruguay.

Messi played dumb and somehow passed the blame on his father-agent, claiming he only signs things handed down to him by him. Eventually, they had to return most of those undeclared funds, and the two partners in crime were thunderstruck with €3.5mil in fines.

Neymar – From Poverty to a Million Dollar Tax Evasion

Neymar is set to reunite with his best friend Lionel Messi at PSG

Neymar da Silva Santos Junior is currently playing for Paris Saint Germain, but he made a name for himself at Santos and Barcelona.

He gathered hundreds of matches at the highest level and won many titles in Brazil, Spain, and France. He also laid claim to the prestigious Copa Libertadores in 2011 and the UEFA Champions League in 2015.

But in 2016, he was found to have evaded taxation on several income sources from abroad. All lead to a $36mil fine, but as anyone can tell, he’s not out begging in the streets just yet.

This issue passed quickly, and most fans are likely to have never heard of it. But the Spanish authorities are onto Neymar’s trail again, having initiated a new investigation into his tax history last year.

Cristiano Ronaldo – Cracks in His Persona

Cristiano Ronaldo is amongst the greatest footballers of all time

We interrupt the enumeration of Barcelona-grown tax-offenders to present you with the case of Cristiano Ronaldo, of Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus fame.

He always seemed an absolute babyface and a hard worker. His success is a testimony of his efforts: hundreds of goals, 3 Premier League titles, 3 Champions League trophies, Spanish La Liga winner twice and Serie A once. But dark secrets lay hidden beneath the surface.

A tax evasion case from 2011-2014 brings him closer to his Argentinian arch-rival. He ended up paying €18.8mil and was sentenced to two years. Still, he didn’t spend any time in prison, as Spanish legislation allows small sentences up to 2 years to be spent under probation.

This little evasion was not his only misdemeanour. Unknown to most of his fans, he was accused of rape on two occasions, in 2005 and 2017. Back in 2005, while still at Manchester United, he brought two women to his penthouse, who have later declared having been harassed by him and another man. The situation ended without much fuss, as the accusations were dropped within days.

Still, in recent years, the woman has started seeking justice again, and her new lawyer is of the opinion that the contract is not legally binding.

Wayne Rooney – A Threesome and a Lot of Booze

Wayne Rooney enjoyed a celebrated career in the Premier League

Rooney had an illustrious career at Manchester United, becoming one of the most decorated players at the English club. He won the Premier League 5 times, a feat that not many players can brag about.

His own little sex scandal was a lot less disgraceful but still had to be included in our list of shame. It involved former TV personalities and escorts Helen Woods and Jennifer Thomson, with whom he engaged in a threesome in a Manchester hotel to the horror of his then-pregnant wife.

Rooney’s history is stained by nothing else but alcohol. Once, he got inches close to jail time, when the cops caught him intoxicated behind the wheel. He got out with a £170 fine, but the court suspended his driver’s license for two years. On top of that, he had to serve 100 hours of community service.

Paul Gascoigne – A Drunken Half-Legend

Paul Gascoigne is one of the most polorasing figures in the history of English football

It’s most likely that younger football fans don’t know much about Paul Gascoigne, except maybe his iconic goal against Scotland in the Euro 96 semi-finals from a YouTube compilation.

Nonetheless, he was once regarded as one of the most gifted English players of his generation, winning the FA Cup with Tottenham at just 24 years old.

His success has faded away too soon, unfortunately, as he developed a heavy drinking habit. The year 1998 marked the end of his professional career.

Addiction and mental health problems drew him closer to the dark side, turning him into a mess of a person.

Diego Maradona – Golden Sniffer

Maradona will forever remain the Golden Boy of soccer.

The Argentinian legend was awarded the FIFA Player of the 20th Century award for his diverse skillset combined with natural-born talent and intelligence on the pitch.

But Maradona wasn’t entirely a saint.

Although he seemed to possess a divine vibe, Diego had struggled with cocaine addiction for over 20 years, between 1980 – 2004. His drug problem peaked while at Napoli, but there he was only fined and received a 14-month suspension that he later won over in court.

In 1991, however, he was banned from the field for 15 months for cocaine consumption. Three years later, he was sent home during the FIFA World Cup after testing positive for five variants of illegal ephedrine.

Robinho – The Unrepentant Rapist

The next entry in our list takes us closer to the promised dread and horror. We’re talking about a player who has enough silverware in his trophy room but who was always perceived to be capable of more: Robson de Souza, widely known as Robinho.

He won the national leagues of Brazil, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and China with his club teams. He was also crowned Confederations Cup winner and Copa América champion along with his Brazilian colleagues.

But after some shady performances, in 2017 he eventually felled from grace completely when an Italian court found him guilty of partaking in a gang rape back in 2013 at a club in Milan. He got sentenced to 9 years in prison for this but was never forced to serve his time.

Marlon King – Convicted three times

The former striker Marlon King was hailed as a football revelation in his first years. His dedication led him to win several awards and trophies. Winner of the Golden Boot, he was the top scorer of the Championship and was voted player of the season at Watford, where he was instrumental in their promotion.

However, he got into trouble and went to prison several times. As his career took off, he joined Wigan Athletic in 2008 but was soon to be sentenced to 18 months for sexual assault. Once released, he signed with Coventry City, only to switch to Birmingham City the following year.

René Higuita – Escobar’s Intermediary

Higuita was one of the most spectacular goalkeepers in the game’s history. Peculiar to a keeper, he found the net 41 times in his career but was most notable for his ‘scorpion kick’ saves.

The Columbian goalkeeper had somewhat of a side job as a carrier and was an intermediary for drug lords Pablo Escobar and Carlos Molina. The story of his ties to Colombia’s barons has murky undertones, but what’s certain is that when his team beat Argentina in a whopping 5-0 to qualify for the ‘96 World Cup, he had to watch the game from a prison cell.

Authorities jailed him for his involvement in and profit from the release of Molina’s daughter. While he did not participate actively in the kidnapping, his job was to deliver the ransom money and received $64000 in compensation. That was seemingly reason enough for the Colombian authorities to lock him up, following Colombia’s new kidnapping legislation.

Jhon Viafara – Arrested for Drug Trafficking

Jhon Eduis Viafara Mina is a Colombian midfielder who had a 3-year career in Europe playing for Southampton and Portsmouth, but during which he underperformed and lost the contracts.

He was a key player at Once Caldas in his natal country, winning the 2004 Copa Libertadores. While playing for the Colombia national team, Jhon Viafara participated in the 2004 and 2007 editions of Copa America.

After his professional football career ended in 2015, Viafara started a cocaine side business. Four years later, he was arrested in Cali for smuggling drugs to the United States.

He was extradited to the US in January 2020, where he denied being part of the Clan del Golf. The Texas judges didn’t have it, as Viafara was sentenced to 11 years in prison on April 3, 2021.

Bruno Fernandes de Souza – A First Degree Murderer Who Still Saved

The Brazillian ex-footballer Bruno Fernandes das Dores de Souza, or simply Bruno, is one of the most heinous characters to populate our list of shame.

Between 2007 and 2009, he was a high-valued asset of Flamengo, rumoured to be wanted by AC Milan. A year later, things took a dark twist. His ex-girlfriend and pregnant with his child, model Eliza Samudio, accused the player of kidnapping and beating her.

He publicly denied it, but the forensic examinations had proven the contrary. Months into 2010, de Souza handed himself in. However, he never admitted the gruesome acts already discovered by the investigators.

Eliza Samudio was murdered by a former policeman at his order and fed to the dogs. The court eventually sentenced him to 22 years in jail, but he was released pending an appeal in 2017. A few months later, the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered Bruno to be re-arrested.

Nizar Trabelsi – Terrorist wannabe

The former Tunisian pro player Nizar Trabelsi is really the cherry on top. If you thought naughty footballers are all about sex, money, alcohol, and drugs, think again.

Trabelsi played for Fortuna Dusseldorf and other second-tier teams for a few years, but his career ended soon when he was sentenced to 10 years for ties with Al-Qaida. He plotted an attack on the US soldiers based at Kleine Brogle in Belgium.

In 2001, he was arrested in his Brussels apartment together with Briton Badat. The latter was going to blow up two US airlines with shoe bombs.

He was sentenced to 10 years in Belgium in 2003. In 2013, he was extradited to the US. The decision was considered a violation by the European Court of Human Rights, and Belgium had to pay 60,000 euros to Trabelsi for the damages.

As of 2018, he was still in jail in Washington DC, awaiting trial.

Concluding remarks

We hope our list of shame made you reconsider your attitude toward football superstars. Magic on the pitch does not always mean a charming life in all its aspects. Contrary to the rumours, Messi and Ronaldo are still humans, and they make mistakes.

Of course, as a football fan, you may expect the players to be as disciplined in real life as they are on the field. Surprise, they’re not. And for some players mentioned in this article, it’s not even about discipline, but mental health.

Edited by Vishal Subramanian