Bundesliga
Man City case joins list of soccer’s biggest scandals
Manchester City is not the first high-profile soccer club to be caught up in a scandal.
The Premier League has accused City of breaching a host of financial regulations, and the club could face a range of punishments including a fine or a deduction of points.
As City mounts its defense, The Associated Press takes a look at scandals that hit have Europe’s leading leagues.
FRANCE
Marseille was the dominant club in France and a rising force in Europe under flamboyant club president Bernard Tapie.
Marseille was playing Valenciennes in the league just six days before facing AC Milan in the European Cup final, and three Valenciennes were approached with bribes to throw the game. Tapie was convicted of rigging the match and later jailed.
On May 20, 1993, defender Jacques Glassmann, forward Christophe Robert and winger Jorge Burruchaga were asked via middleman Jean-Jacques Eydelie — a former midfielder — to go easy.
Robert, who went off early in the game, and Burruchaga, a World Cup winner with Argentina in 1986, accepted the money.
Glassmann refused and then blew the whistle on the plot. He was awarded the 1995 FIFA Fair Play Award.
Marseille beat Valenciennes and downed giant Milan 1-0 with a header from defender Basile Boli. Marseille remains the only French team to win the competition.
Prosecutors charged Eydelie, who confessed to arranging the phone conversation between Marseille general manager Jean-Pierre Bernès and the three players.
Robert’s wife, meanwhile, was charged with conspiracy after an envelope containing 250,000 francs (then about $43,000) was dug up from a back garden.
Marseille kept its Champions League title but wasn’t allowed to defend it. Marseille was stripped of its French league title, having won the previous four in a dominant era, and demoted to the second division.
Tapie, who died in 2021, was ordered to stand down and in 1997 he started an eight-month prison term.
Eydelie, Burruchaga, Robert were also sentenced to jail terms in a corruption scandal that sent shockwaves through French soccer. The club did not win the league again until 2010.
UEFA
European soccer’s governing body has a hit-and-miss record punishing clubs suspected of cheating.
Clubs alleged to have fixed games for betting scams in the Champions League qualifying rounds and the Europa League have been banned from UEFA competitions for up to 10 seasons.
In higher-profile cases, Anderlecht and Manchester City won at the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn European bans of one and two seasons, respectively. City’s case was regarding “Financial Fair Play” rules.
Anderlecht advanced to the 1984 UEFA Cup final by beating Nottingham Forest 3-0 after a two-goal loss in the first leg. In Brussels, a penalty awarded to Anderlecht and a disallowed stoppage-time goal for Forest raised suspicions.
In 1997, Belgian media and legal cases revealed Anderlecht’s president admitted paying the Spanish referee — who had since died in a car crash — 13 years earlier.
UEFA’s executive committee imposed a one-season ban from European competitions. Anderlecht won its appeal in 1998 when CAS ruled UEFA did not follow its proper judicial process.
In 2020, Man City overturned a two-year ban imposed by a UEFA-appointed club finance panel. CAS judges decided the allegations of inflating sponsorship deals and breaching “Financial Fair Play” rules were not proven or the evidence was time-barred.
UEFA has been on more solid ground in match-fixing cases. CAS upheld a 10-season ban for Skenderbeu from Albania, imposed in 2018, and an eight-season ban in 2009 for Pobeda of North Macedonia.
ITALY
Juventus again finds itself mired in scandal 17 years after one of the club’s darkest moments.
The storied Italian club was hit last month with a 15-point penalty deduction for false accounting, while several of its former directors were handed bans from soccer activities. Former president Andrea Agnelli was banned for two years.
Agnelli and the entire board of directors had resigned in November following an investigation by Turin prosecutors.
At the start of the pandemic, Juventus said 23 players agreed to reduce their salary for four months to help the club through the crisis. But prosecutors claim the players gave up only one month’s salary.
Juventus is appealing the Italian soccer federation’s decision, and a preliminary hearing for the investigation by Turin prosecutors is scheduled for March.
The move comes 17 years after the “Calciopoli” refereeing scandal that saw Juventus, a record 36-time Italian champion, demoted to Serie B and stripped of two Serie A titles. There were also points penalties for other clubs, including AC Milan and Lazio.
That shook Italian soccer but the Italy team restored some joy when it won the World Cup that year, just as it had done 24 year earlier following another scandal.
Italy great Paolo Rossi was banned for two years for his involvement in the 1980 betting scandal known as “Totonero” while he was at Perugia.
Rossi, who always professed his innocence, was bought by Juventus in 1981 and returned from his suspension at the end of the 1981-82 season — just in time for the World Cup.
There he scored a hat trick against Brazil, two against Poland in the semifinal and the opening goal against West Germany to help Italy win the final.
Rossi was named player of the tournament and he also went on to win the Ballon d’Or that year.
SPAIN
In 2019, more than 40 people were accused of fixing the Spanish league game between Levante and Zaragoza at the end of the 2010-11 season. Among those acquitted was former México coach Javier Aguirre, who now is with Mallorca. Two former Zaragoza officials were convicted of fraud and given a 15-month prison sentence.
A year later, a former director of Spanish club Osasuna said the team made payments to fix Spanish league results. The payments were allegedly made to try to keep Osasuna in the first division both in 2012-13 and 2013-14.
GERMANY
A soccer scandal in the shadow of the Cold War shook up the Bundesliga in 1965 and led to one of the worst-ever seasons by any top-division team.
West German club Hertha Berlin had a problem. Players didn’t want to sign for a club based in West Berlin, half of a divided city that was surrounded by communist-run East Germany. Hertha solved that problem with secret extra payments to players and was relegated as punishment — though allegations persist that other clubs had similar schemes that went unpunished.
Political pressure for West Berlin to be represented in the Bundesliga led to woefully unprepared Tasmania Berlin being given a place just before the new season began. Tasmania scored just 15 goals all season, conceded 108 and held one game at the Olympiastadion with just 827 fans, meaning the huge arena was about 1% full.
Germany’s biggest scandal in the last decade came when Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness was sentenced to prison for large-scale tax evasion in 2014. He was re-elected as Bayern president in 2016 following his release.
-AP
Bayer Leverkusen pulled off a stunning Bundesliga comeback when they twice fought back from a goal down as Victor Boniface netted a 93rd-minute winner in a 4-3 home victory over VfL Wolfsburg on Sunday.
Second-placed Leverkusen have nine points from four games, level with SC Freiburg and Eintracht Frankurt and two ahead of Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig, who play later on Sunday.
Despite taking home the three points, it was far from a convincing performance from the champions, with midfielder Granit Xhaka criticising his side’s defending.
“This is a huge wake-up call for all of us. We can’t continue with this performance,” Xhaka told DAZN.
“We can’t defend so naively. That’s not good enough and shouldn’t happen at this level. A top team doesn’t concede two goals in nine minutes! It was all far too easy.”
Coach Xabi Alonso opted to shuffle his pack, making five changes to the team that beat Feyenoord 4-0 in the Champions League, and Leverkusen suffered a nightmare start as they conceded from a Nordi Mukiele own goal in the fourth minute.
Leverkusen levelled nine minutes later when Florian Wirtz found space on the edge of the box and swept his shot into the bottom corner, before an unmarked Jonathan Tah scored their second with a cool header at the back post.
The lead was short-lived as the visitors equalised from a Sebastiaan Bornauw header before Mattias Svanberg went on a driving run in Leverkusen’s half and curled the ball past goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky on the stroke of halftime.
Leverkusen looked more assured after Alsonso made two changes during the break and their pressure quickly told, as substitute Piero Hincapie headed home a corner in the 49th minute.
Alonso brought on attackers Boniface and Martin Terrier with Leverkusen desperately seeking a winner and Wolfsburg quickly faded under the pressure.
The visitors suffered another blow when substitute Yannick Gerhardt was shown a red card in the 88th minute after clattering into Jeremie Frimpong from behind and then stepping on the defender’s ankle.
Sensing disarray in Wolfsburg’s ranks, the hosts surged forward and Nigerian Boniface, who started on the bench despite scoring twice in Leverkusen’s last league game, pounced on a loose ball in the penalty area and rifled home the winner.
“We knew how Wolfsburg would play and what we were up against… we really wanted to turn the game around for our fans,” Boniface said.
“We managed to do that. Now, of course, we’re very happy.”
The win will fill Leverkusen with confidence ahead of their daunting clash against in-form league-leaders Bayern Munich on Saturday.
-Reuters
Champions Bayer Leverkusen cruised to a 4-1 victory at Hoffenheim on Saturday thanks to a dazzling performance by Victor Boniface that included two goals and an assist.
Leverkusen, who face Feyenoord at the start of the Champions League campaign next week, bounced back after losing to RB Leipzig just before the international break for what was their first domestic defeat in more than a season.
On Saturday they took control quickly and struck twice in the first half-hour, with Boniface twice beating the offside trap to give the visitors a 2-0 lead.
The Nigerian first set up Martin Terrier for a tap-in after 17 minutes and then scored himself in the 30th.
Hoffenheim’s Mergim Berisha, making his first appearances since a knee ligament tear last November, cut the deficit in the 37th and had another chances for a second goal a little later.
Leverkusen, however, never lost control of the game and restored their two-goal lead courtesy of a Florian Wirtz penalty in the 72nd.
Boniface then single-handedly dismantled the Hoffenheim defence with a strong run down the left, powering a shot past keeper Oliver Baumann in the 75th to lift Leverkusen to fourth place on six points.
Borussia Dortmund are top on seven points, with Bayern Munich, on six, visiting Holstein Kiel later on Saturday.
-Reuters
Werder Bremen have suspended Guinea’s Naby Keita for the rest of the season and forced him to pay a ‘substantial fine’ after he refused to play in Sunday’s Bundesliga clash with Bayer Leverkusen.
Keita made headlines over the weekend when he refused to travel with his teammates and instead went home after finding out that he would not make the starting lineup for the game which eventually saw Leverkusen crowned Bundesliga champions.
While reports claim Keita will receive a ‘substantial fine’, an official statement from the club has revealed he will serve a suspension. Keita will be not be selected for games for the rest of this season, while he will also be banned from training with the team and featuring in the dressing room.
Bremen director Clemens Fritz said: “Naby’s behaviour cannot be tolerated for us as a club. With this action, he let his team down in a tense sporting and personnel situation and placed himself above the team.
“We can’t allow that. At this stage of the season we need full focus on the remaining games and a team that is very close together. There was therefore no alternative to our measures.”
The former Liverpool midfielder joined the club as a free agent on a three-year deal in the summer of 2023, following a poor spell at Anfield.
The 29-year-old was keen to defend himself and his professionalism, taking to Instagram to share his point of view. He said: “Ever since I arrived at this magnificent club, I have always shown my professionalism.
“I have always tried to help the club and the great supporters, especially during this time of poor results. Since the start of my career, I have never had problems with my discipline and have always shown an exemplary attitude. I will not accept any person trying to tarnish my image.
“To the supporters, I have always worked hard in training to get the right result at the weekend. In training, I can only give my best.”
Keita has played just 106 minutes for Bremen since moving back to the Bundesliga last summer and now will be unable to secure any further game time during the current campaign.
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