When people talk about sports, outstanding achievements, victories and records come to mind. But very often sports scandals also become public knowledge. You will read about the five biggest of them in this article.

Dirty soccer

In soccer, match-fixing sometimes occurs and the fans of the clubs, the reputation of the teams, and bettors who bet in bookmakers’ offices suffer because of it (rating of the best companies for betting you can find on Meta.reviews).

It seems that this can only happen in the lower divisions, but the Italian clubs in 2006 proved otherwise. Four giants at once (Juventus, Fiorentina, Lazio and Milan), playing in Serie A, were involved in fixing matches. The decision of the judges was impartial. All clubs had to go to Serie B, receive a penalty on points, and Juventus were also deprived of two championship titles.

Then the teams appealed and all clubs, except Turin, returned to Serie A. However, their reputations were seriously damaged.

Hapless runner

At the prestigious 1980 Boston Marathon, Cuban runner Rosie Ruiz set a world record, surpassing her previous record by more than 30 minutes. However, later it turned out that she did not start in the general group but calmly waited in the wings on a bench in the park. Rosie joined the race closer to the finish line.

It turned out that in the same dishonest way, she got to the marathon. She was invited to Boston after her triumph in New York. But even there the girl drove half the distance by metro.

Drugs in racing

The NASCAR Race is one of the most prestigious races in the world. However, from 1975 to 1986, some events at these races undermined the credibility of the championship. It turned out that several crews at once were engaged in transporting drugs in their cars. Over a period of eight years, the racers had managed to transport about 300 tons of marijuana. As a result of the police investigation, some of the pilots ended up in jail, and there were also shooting chases.

Political subtleties

In 2012, London hosted the Olympic Games. The British assured that these competitions would exceed all expectations in terms of organization. However, it was not without scandals.

Before the soccer match between the women’s teams of North Korea and Colombia, all the girls representing North Korea left the field without explanation. It turned out that the names of North Korean athletes appeared on the scoreboard next to the flag of South Korea during the demonstration of team lineups. The fact is that the relations between the North and South of the Korean Peninsula are very tense, so the players took this mistake as an insult.

An hour later, the organizers, who made a public apology, managed to return the athletes to the field. By the way, in that match, they won with a score of 2:0.

Checkmate

It seems that in such a peaceful sport as chess there can be no scandals. However, in 1986, the World Championship was a very hot topic.

Two grandmasters from the USSR fought for the title of the best chess player on the planet, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. After playing three games and suffering three defeats in a row, Kasparov began to doubt the honesty of his seconds. He said that they were working for Karpov, giving him all Garry’s ideas for the game. After all the assistants who were suspected of cheating were expelled from the team, Kasparov began to gain one victory after another. As a result, he became the world champion.