For example, Calciopoli. Or something involving cheating, betting, hooliganism, etc.

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  3. Bundesliga Scandal 1971.

    At the 50th birthday of the president of Kickers Offenbach, Horst-Gregorio Canellas, he played secretly recorded audio recordings which proved that players demanded bribes to ensure certain results in the relegation battle of the Bundesliga.

    For example, Frank Manglitz, then goalkeeper of Cologne, threatened to deliberately not hold balls against other teams if Canellas did not give him 25,000 Deutschmarks.

    In total, it was found that 18 games had been manipulated, ten of the 18 first division clubs were involved and 52 players were suspended, 2 clubs had their Bundesliga licences revoked.

    The public effect was a disaster, not only did many spectators see the Bundesliga as a venal competition, but several players had perjured themselves in court during the investigations and were considered money-grubbing liars. Audience numbers dropped by more than 1 million over the next few seasons.

  5. It’s probably the Hillsborough Disaster.

    The semi-finals of the FA cup between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in 1989. Held at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground Hillsborough as a neutral venue.

    The ground hadn’t had a safety certificate since 1981. The police had advised that the ground cut their maximum capacity but hadn’t and it was just generally badly designed in the 1890s. And had had several “minor” crushes through the 1980s.

    Due to a reduction in the number of charter trains that year compared to the previous year and roadworks on the motor way. Lots of fans arrived late. Then became desperate to get into the ground before kick off. Instead of delaying the kick off, the police decided to open the large exit gates, instead of getting everybody through the turnstiles. So people were pushing at the back to.get in and the people at the front were getting crushed between the people at the back and fences designed to stop a pitch invasion. Eventually 97 people died as a result, with the last one dying in 2021. As he had sustained severe and irreversible brain damage on the day.

    The police blamed the fans, making up stories about counterfeit tickets, Liverpool fans looting the bodies of dead people, pissing on officers trying to help etc. Which The Sun newspaper joyfully reported.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AHillsborough_disaster_Sun.jpg

    So The Sun has been effectively banned from Merseyside ever since. With posters in peoples home windows saying “Don’t Buy The Sun” still being quite widespread.

  6. At one of the last Euro or World cup, our team had a match against Serbia and the Kosovarian/Albanian players of the Swiss team did a “double-eagle” with their hands and mocked the Serbian players and fans.

    That was widely considered a bad move.

  7. Dude running into the field. Team wasn’t allowed to train on Danish ground for a while as punishment. Three numbers circled around claiming they belonged to him, and three innocent people got so many hate calls. (Probably scorn exes doing it as revenge.) The whole thing blew up and it was crazy.

  8. The scandal everybody knows is the disgrace of Gijón (Nichtangriffspakt/Schande von Gijón).

    It was during the group phase of the WM 1982. West Germany and Austria knew that a narrow win for West Germany would result in both advancing to the next round. Algeria, who played the previous day, would consequently get eliminated.

    West Germany scored in the first 10 minutes and after that nothing happened. The teams would pass the ball around in their own half without trying to score a goal .

    From this game onwards the final pair of group matches always start at the same time.

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