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10. Mexico's "Chicken-Gate" scandal
Ahead of the 2011 Concacaf Gold Cup, five Mexican players were banned from the tournament after testing positive for the illicit substance clenbuterol. The "guilty" players were goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, defenders Francisco Rodriguez and Edgar Duenas, and midfielders Antonio 'Sinha' and Christian Bermúdez.
The Mexican Football Federation said that the players had eaten contaminated chicken. In fact, they all tested negative after a second test. Although it was a massive scandal, Mexico managed to win the Cup without five of their key players.
9. Cristiano Ronaldo rape allegations
Amid the #MeToo movement, Cristiano Ronaldo's reputation suffered a big punch when a story of rape allegations surfaced in 2018. CR7's agent, Jorge Mendes, denied these accusations, but soon after, a Las Vegas woman named Kathryn Mayorga went public. Long story made short, Mayorga met Cristiano at a nightclub in Vegas in 2009, then headed to a hotel room where the alleged rape happened. They reached an agreement, and Mayorga was paid $375.000 back in 2009.
Ten years later, after the scandal made it to the news, Mayorga waived her right to anonymity and filed a lawsuit against Cristiano, and Las Vegas Police reopen the investigation.
Things got so heated that the Juventus didn't play any North America pre-season games, as usual, fearing of Cristiano being detained. In June of 2019, La Vegas Police confirmed that he was not going to face criminal charges. Cristiano always maintained that it was a consensual encounter, and publicly said he felt "embarrassed" by the accusations.
8. Ribery and Benzema scandal
In 2010, French players Franck Ribéry and Karim Benzema were accused in an alleged sex scandal after it was reported that they hired an underage prostitute named Zahia Dehar. Ribéry admitted paying Dehar but denied knowing she was underage. While Benzema denied having any sexual relations with Dehar. In 2014, the "Le Bleus" stars were discharged of solicitation of an underage prostitute. They were facing a hefty fine and up to three years in jail.
7. Marseille tainted Cup
After becoming the first and so far only French team to win the UEFA Champions League in the 1992/93 season, the Olympique Marseille was involved in one of the biggest match-fixing scandals of all time. The Olympique President at the time Bernard Tapie, along general manager Jean Berenes were determined to win the Champions League at all costs. The final was just six days after a Ligue 1 match against Valenciennes, and they wanted to have their star players fresh and focused on the big European Cup. Berenes and midfielder Jean-Jacques Eydelie bribed Valenciennes players Christophe Robert and Jorge Barrachaga to lose the match.
Marseille won the match 1-0, but Jacques Glassman -who refused the bribe- spilled the bins to both the Valenciennes manager and the referee during halftime. Police investigated, and Marseille was stripped from their league title and forever stained their legacy.
6. John Terry's affair
Former British star John Terry became the center of a very complicated love triangle back in 2010. Tabloids went crazy after it was reported that the married Chelsea star was having an affair with Vanessa Perroncel, the ex-girlfriend and baby mama of international team-mate Wayne Bridge. The scandal got Terry sacked as England captain. Although both Terry and Perroncel denied the affair, Bridge refused to shake Terry's hand when they met a Premier League match and even withdrew from the international team to avoid sharing a dressing room with him.
History repeated a few years when Thibaut Courtois had an affair with his international team-mate Kevin de Bruyne's girlfriend that caused tensions among the "Red Devils".
5. FIFA corruption scandal
Jaws dropped worldwide when swiss police arrested several top FIFA officials on corruption and racketing charges at a Zurich's luxury hotel on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice in May 2015. The indictment accused 1FIFA officials of corruption plots of more than 20 years and approximately $200 million. The scandal not only sent many officials to jail, but it ended the career of the two most powerful men in football at the time, FIFA President Sepp Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini.
4. Ronaldo's transvestite scandal
In 2008, Brazilian superstar Ronaldo was recovering from an injury in Rio de Janeiro when he was caught in a scandal involving three trans prostitutes. Ronaldo admitted hiring the three prostitutes to later find out at the motel room that they were transvestites. He claimed that once he realized the situation, they tried to bride him into paying $30,000.
Ronaldo was deeply affected by the whole scandal going public because he thought it affected his "macho" image. The prostitutes always maintained that he knew from the beginning that they were males, and even shared a YouTube video of the AC Milan star leaving the motel room.
3. Diego Maradona's drug scandal
You can't talk about scandal and football without mentioning Diego Maradona. The Argentinian superstar began using cocaine while in Barcelona. Things got so bad that Barça hired Cesar Menotti, his Argentina coach, as the team's coach to keep him on track in 1983. It didn't work; Maradona kept binging on drugs and was later sold to Napoli after a brawl at the Copa del Rey final against Athletic Bilbao.
Maradona's addiction followed him to Serie A, and eventually, he was giving a 15-month ban and a $70,000 fine after testing positive for cocaine in March 1991. A month later, he was arrested in Buenos Aires under drug possession and distribution charges. He was prosecuted in Italy and Argentina and got a suspended sentence.
2. Calciopoli
In 2006 a colossal scandal shook the core of Serie A when it was uncovered that many top teams were involved in a match-fixing scandal. AC Milan, Juventus, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Reggina team managers were recorded picking referees favorable to them. All teams got punished, and several got relegated to Serie B, including Juventus.
1. Andres Escobar's deadly goal
Scoring an own-goal that leaves your team out of the World Cup must be any player's nightmare. Getting shot to death by doing so is the ultimate nightmare. That's precisely what happened to Andrés Escobar 10 days after scoring an own-goal that left Colombia out of the 1994 World Cup.
At first, it was believed that Escobar was a random victim of crime, but eventually, a drug cartel bodyguard confessed he killed Escobar because the own-goal cost his drug lord bosses a lot of betting money.
