2-2 ?
Don't be daft, of course there's no evidence that the 2-2 draw between Sweden and Denmark was fixed ahead of time. After all it was the only result, assuming Italy beat Bulgaria, that would allow both these Scandinavian neighbours to proceed into the lucrative knock-out stage of Euro 2004. And for the Azzurri to climb aboard their Alitalia Airbus and return to a frightful inquisition at home, and their manager, Trapattoni, to collect his P45 from the Italian federation. The score had all conviction of votes divvied out in the Eurovision Song Contest.
What was really disturbing however were the opinions of the commentators on the radio and TV this morning. To a man they told their audience that the game could not have been fixed. After all they watched it and would have been able to spot any hanky-panky! Bollocks. Professional sport is awash with examples of cheating. And that cheating is almost never exposed by the commentators.
A Google search turns up some of soccer's more dark and putrefying corners.
In a recent interview with German TV, Franz Beckenbauer, hinted that his club Bayern Munich, threw a Bundesliga game to ensure city rival TSV 1860 Munich did not win the 1966/67 title . "We lost 5-2 in Braunschweig and that suited us," Beckenbauer, now a Bayern executive, told German television. "I can say it now. We did not want our local rivals to win the title again. I'm not saying that we lost on purpose but our resistance was limited to the minimum." Gheorghe Hagi, Romania's best-known star, alleged important matches were decided for up to $60,000.
And who can forget Bernard Tapie, who brought to European Cup to Olympique Marseille in 1993? The cup was hardly in the club's trophy cabinet when the team was disqualified following evidence of bribes to players of Valenciennes to "go easy" in a league match against Marseille.
And if you think it's only the dirty furriner how about Grobbelaar's clumsy$65,000.00 game against Newcastle in 1993 to enable, it was alleged, a far-eastern betting syndicate clear the pot?
Did we hear an suspicions voiced from those "experts" at the matches. Did we hell!
How about Sir Alex Ferguson's suggestion that the Champions League quarter-final draw in spring 2003 was rigged? "Real Madrid -- they have a nice draw, they must have picked it themselves," the Old Trafford boss said. "The Spanish or Italian teams don't play each other. How do you think they work that out? They don't want us in the final, that's for sure."
Rob Hughes of The London Times perhaps got close to the truth. Trying to keep a lid on corruption, he wrote, "is like trying to trap odious vapour in a colander. The poison seeps out."
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home