Soccer Scandals When the Beautiful Game Turned Ugly

It was Pelé who popularised the idea of football as ‘the Beautiful Game’ and so it is. But football also has its uglier side. As far back as the Edwardian era matches were ‘fixed’ to benefit gamblers, or to help clubs desperately in need of points to win promotion or to avoid relegation. There have been matches so brutal that on one occasion it was necessary for the BBC to precede televised highlights with a warning to viewers that what they were about see was ‘appalling, disgusting, disgraceful’. Crowd disorders, inadequate policing, and stadiums left in disrepair have resulted in loss of life and added to the scandals that have scarred ‘the Beautiful Game’ and caused public outrage. From Bolton to Brussels, Manchester to Montevideo, Seoul to Santiago, football has seen many dark chapters, many tragedies and more than a few shady characters, from the goalkeeper who offered not to ‘accidently’ let in goals to the referee who was arrested with 13lbs of heroin hidden in his underpants. Soccer Scandals: When the Beautiful Game Turned Ugly tells of the high-ranking officials who were at the centre of some of the most remarkable widespread corruptions that football has ever seen, of the betting rings involving unscrupulous players and referees, of doping, blackmail and phone taps, of ‘shameful savagery’ on the pitch and riots off it, even of suicide and attempted murder. It is the stuff of pulp fiction rather than of just games and goals and Saturday heroes. It is the ugly side of the game that Pelé found so beautiful.