Football has repeatedly been shaken by scandals involving bribery, match-fixing, illegal betting and attempts to evade financial regulations. From Italy’s Calciopoli affair to the Premier League case involving Manchester City, some investigations have led to relegations, title removals, bans and record fines.
Calciopoli – Italy, 2004-2006
The scandal centred on FIGC, Juventus, Milan, Lazio, Fiorentina, Arezzo, Reggina, Siena and Triestina after Juventus director Luciano Moggi was found to have played a leading role in a corruption scheme.
An investigation initially focused on possible doping by Juventus players. Tapped telephone calls then suggested Moggi had sought specific referees for Juventus and other Serie A clubs, while also attempting to influence referees over player suspensions before matches against Juventus.
Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani was investigated after requesting favourable assistant referees. Fiorentina owners Diego and Andrea Della Valle were examined over efforts to influence officials and avoid relegation, while Lazio president Claudio Lotito was investigated over attempts to secure favourable referees.
The inquiry covered 19 matches from the 2004-05 Serie A season, including seven involving Juventus. It involved nine referees and 41 suspects, including club presidents and executives, referees, referee designators, assistant referees and FIGC officials.
Juventus were stripped of their 2005 and 2006 titles, relegated to Serie B, deducted nine points and fined €75,000. Their entire board resigned after the 2005-06 season, while Moggi and chief executive Antonio Giraudo received lifetime bans from Italian football.
Fiorentina were initially relegated to Serie B but stayed in Serie A after an appeal. They were barred from the 2006-07 UEFA Champions League, began that season with a 15-point deduction and played two matches behind closed doors. Lazio also avoided relegation on appeal, receiving a three-point deduction and a ban from the 2006-07 UEFA Cup.
Milan were deducted eight points and had 30 points removed from their Serie A finish, ruling them out of the UEFA Champions League. Reggina lost 11 points, while no champion was officially assigned for the 2004-05 Serie A season.
Marseille and the Valenciennes bribery case – 1993
Before the Ligue 1 match between Olympique Marseille and Valenciennes on 20 May 1993, Marseille president Bernard Tapie and general manager Jean-Pierre Bernes instructed midfielder Jean-Jacques Eydelie to approach Valenciennes players Jorge Burruchaga, Jacques Glassmann and Christophe Robert.
They wanted the players to perform poorly so Marseille’s team would remain fresh for the UEFA Champions League final against Milan on 26 May. Tapie told Eydelie: “It is imperative that you get in touch with your former Nantes team-mates at Valenciennes. We don’t want them acting like idiots and breaking us before the final with Milan.”
Robert and Burruchaga accepted the bribe. Robert persuaded Valenciennes to deliberately lose, and Marseille won 1-0. Glassmann refused, informed referee Jean-Marie Veniel and manager Boro Primorac, and reported that a bribe had been offered without naming the individuals involved. French police questioned Marseille players in the dressing room after the match.
After Marseille won Ligue 1 and the UEFA Champions League final, Robert admitted his involvement to French authorities. He had received F250,000 from Eydelie, equivalent to €63,404 in 2025. Eydelie and Bernes were arrested.
Marseille were stripped of the 1992/93 title and relegated to Ligue 2 in 1994 for the bribery case and financial problems. The club filed for bankruptcy in 1995 and returned to Ligue 1 in 1996, after three seasons in the second tier.
Tapie and Bernes were given lifetime bans from French football, although FIFA overturned Bernes’s ban in 1996. Tapie received a 26-month prison sentence and a F20,000 fine for match-fixing and fraud. Bernes received a two-year suspended sentence and a fine.
Eydelie was given a one-year suspended prison sentence and a two-year worldwide football ban. Burruchaga and Robert received six-month suspended sentences, while Burruchaga was banned for six months and Robert for one year. Glassmann received the 1995 FIFA Fair Play Award.
West Ham and third-party ownership – 2006/07
West Ham’s arrival of Argentina internationals Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano from Corinthians attracted immediate attention. Chelsea had been close to signing Tevez, who instead joined West Ham and was presented alongside manager Alan Pardew.
West Ham said “all other aspects of the transfer will remain confidential and undisclosed”. It later emerged that the club had breached Premier League rules on third-party ownership. The players’ rights were partly owned by a company linked to agent Kia Joorabchian, who was also in advanced talks to take over West Ham.
Private agreements with offshore companies connected to Joorabchian were included in the players’ contracts but were not disclosed during their registration. Mascherano left for Liverpool in January, while Tevez scored seven times in West Ham’s final 10 games to help the club avoid relegation by three points.
West Ham, by then owned by Icelandic investor Eggert Magnusson, were found to have seriously misled the Premier League and broken two competition rules. The club avoided a points deduction but received a British-record £5.5m fine on 28 April.
Sheffield United finished 18th on goal difference and were relegated to the Championship. They challenged the decision at a tribunal but failed to have it overturned, later receiving £20m in a court settlement after it was accepted that Tevez’s goals had made a critical difference.
Totonero – Italy, 1979-1980
The Totonero scandal began when Roman restaurant owner Alvaro Trinca and supplier Massimo Cruciani devised a scheme involving Lazio players who visited the restaurant. They planned to fix matches and profit from Totocalcio, Italy’s state-run betting pool and the country’s only legal sports betting system at the time.
Lazio players agreed to fix matches in return for part of the winnings, but Trinca and Cruciani lost more than 100 million Italian lire by February 1980. They reported the scheme to Rome’s Public Prosecutor, naming 27 players and 13 Serie A and Serie B clubs.
Milan and Lazio were relegated to Serie B after the 1979/80 season, while Milan president Felice Colombo was banned from Italian football. Avellino, Bologna and Perugia were deducted five points for the 1980/81 Serie A season. Palermo and Taranto received the same penalty in Serie B.
Twenty players received bans covering all football activity. Avellino’s Stefano Pellegrini was suspended for six years, while 11 players were banned for at least three years. Paolo Rossi was among those punished. He returned shortly before the 1982 FIFA World Cup, where he won the Golden Boot and was named Player of the Tournament. All active players still serving bans when Italy won the World Cup were reinstated soon afterwards.
European match-fixing investigation – 2009
An investigation by prosecutors in Bochum, Germany, into organised crime uncovered extensive match-fixing through telephone intercepts. Raids followed in November 2009 across the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Authorities said at least 200 matches in nine European countries had been manipulated through payments to players, coaches and officials. Croatian brothers Ante and Milan Sapina were identified as leading figures. Ukrainian referee Oleg Oriekhov was caught fixing a UEFA Europa League match between FC Basel and CSKA Sofia in November 2009.
German investigators found 32 manipulated matches involving clubs including SSV Ulm, SC Verl and VfL Osnabruck. Twenty-nine matches were investigated in Turkey, including games involving Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Istanbul Basaksehir.
The investigation also covered 11 matches in Austria, 22 in Switzerland, 17 in Belgium, 14 in Croatia, seven in Slovenia, 13 in Hungary and eight in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Three UEFA Champions League matches and 12 UEFA Europa League qualifiers were examined.
Before the wider investigation, UEFA had banned FK Pobeda from European competition for eight years for fixing a 2004 UEFA Champions League qualifier against Pyunik. Club president Aleksandar Zabrcanec and captain Nikolce Zdravevski received lifetime bans from European football.
A German referee was accused of accepting a bribe during a regional league match in May 2009. SSV Ulm players Davor Kraljevic, Marijo Marinovic and Dinko Radojevic were denounced by the club. SC Verl player Patrick Neumann admitted receiving €500 and was suspended with Tim Hagedorn. Osnabruck player Marchel Schoun admitted that a 3-0 defeat by Augsburg in April 2009 had been manipulated and was fined.
No Austrian clubs were held responsible, although Kapfenberg players were accused of receiving large sums after deliberately losing to Red Bull Salzburg, Rapid Wien and Austria Wien during the 2009/10 season. In Switzerland, FC Thun and FC Gossau were investigated. Thun players were suspected of receiving thousands of Swiss francs, while Gossau midfielder Mario Bigoni said a 2009 match against Locarno was “not clean”. Gossau players reportedly received tens of thousands of francs, and Bigoni was found dead in the Rhine River in October 2011.
Ante Sapina, who had also been convicted in the 2005 Bundesliga match-fixing case, served five years in prison. Milan Sapina received a 10-month sentence. Better Tuna A. and betting office operators Stevan R. and Nurretin G. received 44-month and 47-month sentences for manipulating 32 matches and bribing players.
Manchester City – 2009-2018
Manchester City’s rapid rise followed the 2009 takeover by Abu Dhabi United Group, led by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The club invested heavily, quickly won major honours and became the dominant force in the Premier League.
Leaks published by German newspaper Der Spiegel, followed by a lengthy investigation, led the Premier League to charge Manchester City in February 2023 with 115 breaches of its financial rules.
The charges covered nine years and alleged that the club used deliberately overvalued sham sponsorship contracts to circumvent regulations. Sponsors paid only part of the agreed sums, with the Emirati owners providing the remainder. This created profit on paper rather than increasing the club’s equity.
Manchester City were found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges on 29 September 2026. The club was found to have inflated revenue and artificially generated more than £900m in profits.
On 2 October, Manchester City announced that it would appeal the independent commission’s verdict. A final ruling, including disciplinary action, is expected before the end of January 2027.
