© Breaking The Lines 2017-2021. All Rights Reserved.

The Biggest Controversies in the History of the Champions League Final

June 27, 2024
Historical

Every football fan has probably felt robbed by referees at least once in their lives. Some, even make a career out of moaning about refereeing decisions from 20 years ago. And even though I think that refereeing mistakes are part and parcel of football, I can’t help but wonder how the all-time Champions League standings would look like if history had gone a bit different.

 

Doing an exhaustive alternate history timeline of the Champions League would be, well exhausting so what I want to do now is take you on a trip through the annals of Europe’s most prestigious competition taking a look at every controversy surrounding a European Cup or Champions League final I could find.

 

Our first controversial final throws up a familiar name in the circles of refereeing controversies, namely Real Madrid. The legendary team of Alfredo Di Stefano and Paco Gento were looking to defend their first-ever title in the 1957 European Cup Final.

 

 

The match would be played in their home stadium, as back then the winning team would also get the hosting rights for next season, something I think should be introduced again, especially since UEFA will probably start pimping out the Champions League Final to the US and Middle East soon enough.

 

Their opponents, Fiorentina had just become the first Italian team to reach a European final and were looking to become the best Italian team for the foreseeable future. The game was tied for more than an hour when Dutch referee Leo Horn awarded a penalty for Los Blancos. The only problem was, Enrique Mateos, the Real Madrid player that was fouled had been offside during the build-up.

 

Horn’s linesman raised his flag to signal this, but the referee ignored him. To add insult to injury, Mateos hadn’t even been inside the box when the challenge occurred meaning that Real Madrid’s penalty was awarded for a foul on a player outside the box in the offside position. Naturally, Di Stefano scored the spot kick and Paco Gento scored Real’s second goal a few minutes later to seal the win for the Spanish side.

 

Speculation towards this final has gone into the most obscure of realms, since it was such a long time ago, but at the time involvement by Spain dictator Francesco Franco was seen as a very probable cause for the contentious decision. Three years later, Real Madrid were playing their fifth consecutive European Cup Final, having won all of them so far. Their dominance in the newly founded competition seemed unbreakable, having beaten the best teams in France and Italy in the seasons prior.

 

Inside the Politicised World of Hungarian Football

 

In 1960, the Germans took a stab at dethroning the Spanish giants with Frankfurt looking like serious contenders, having thrashed Rangers 12-4 on aggregate in the semi-finals, back when Scottish football was actually good. The final was to be held at Hampden Park and is deemed to be one of the best European finals of all time. 127,000 people squeezed themselves into the stadium and more than 70 million watched the final on TV, during a time when a television set was considered the ultimate luxury.

 

The only problem before the final was the German team refused to take to the pitch if Real Madrid’s Ferenc Puskas was to play. Puskas was still somewhat salty having lost the 1954 World Cup Final to West Germany and had told the press that the Germans had used performance-enhancing drugs during the finals. The Germans did not forget this, as they sort of have a habit of holding grudges, and demanded Puskas make a formal written apology before the final.

 

With a teenage Sir Alex Ferguson and the future Lisbon Lions in the crowd, Frankfurt opened the scoring in the 18th minute, but the previous controversy had stirred a hornet’s nest and Real went to town on the German team. In the 71st minute the score stood at 6-1 and even though Eintracht never gave up that Real team was just too good for them. The match ended 7-3 and still remains the highest-scoring European final of all time.

 

The aforementioned rule regarding European Cup winners getting to host the final in the subsequent season was put under the microscope in the 1965 Final. Inter had defeated Real Madrid in 1964 and would face Benfica on home turf. The Portuguese club, who still had Eusebio and Mario Coluna in their ranks, but were without Bela Gutmann, the man who had won them their previous two titles lodged a formal complaint with UEFA regarding the venue.

 

 

Facing Inter at the San Siro is a daunting task for any team, even one as powerful as Benfica back then and by the mid-60s everyone had started taking the European Cup seriously. The Portuguese team threatened UEFA stating they would send their youth team to play the final, to which UEFA basically shrugged and said “Them’s the rules”. In the end Benfica acquiesced and sent their senior squad, which lost 1-0 to the Italians.

 

The next 10 years seemed to be quite subdued in terms of controversies, but just like a ball that’s been held underwater and then shoot up, the 1975 final was a riot, quite literally. That season Leeds had experienced Brian Clough’s disastrous 44-day period in charge and had brought in Jimmy Armfield to pick up the pieces.

 

The core of the squad that had been one of the best sides in England under Don Revie remained at the club, but the team itself was a shadow of the footballing machine it had once been. That was in the league, at least, as they unexpectedly made the European Cup Final, held in Paris to mark the 20-year anniversary of the inception of the competition.

 

Leeds managed to stun Barcelona alongside their superstars, Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens and Rinus Michels and were due to meet Bayern, who found themselves in a similar situation. Both teams had mediocre internal campaigns, finishing mid table and needed to win the final to play European football next season, unlike today when financially insulated giants can horribly mismanage their seasons and scrape to 4th without any repercussions.

 

The Biggest Fallen Giants in European Football

 

Just four minutes into the final, Leeds upheld their reputation as the dirtiest team in England, when Terry Yorath broke Bjorn Andersson’s leg. What many Leeds fans forget, when they call this final a robbery is that Yorath somehow managed to avoid a red card for his criminal tackle. Possibly motivated by his earlier erroneous decision, referee Michel Kitabdjian swung the scales in the Germans’ favour.

 

Leeds dominated the early exchanges and the referee ignored two penalty calls from the Leeds players for a handball and a foul inside the box, with Franz Beckenbauer being at fault for both. The tense atmosphere in the stadium soon turned toxic when the referee ruled Peter Lorimer’s goal to be offside, due to a passive offside position for Billy Bremner, despite the linesman not signalling any infraction.

 

The referee initially awarded the goal but then reversed his decision after Franz Beckenbauer went up to speak to him. Seems like the Kaiser had maxed out his speech stats before the game. Replays showed that the decision could have gone either way, but by that point there was no turning back for the Leeds fans who started throwing every item in their pockets onto the pitch.

 

The game had to be interrupted and it was this break that allowed the Bavarians to gather themselves and with two quick counterattacking strikes they defeated Leeds 2-0. Enraged Leeds fans started riots in the stands and throughout the city, as the French press called them “English Animals” and the reputation for fan violence amongst English football fans took its first roots in European football.

 

 

That game had repercussions that can still be felt to this day for both clubs. Bayern went on to win another European Cup the next season and became one of the greatest clubs of all time, prospering in the modern era under the leadership of Uli Hoeness, who suffered a career-ending injury in the final and went on to join the backroom staff at the club.

 

Leeds meanwhile failed to achieve any European success with their golden team, having also lost the 1973 Cup Winners Cup final to AC Milan in contentious fashion, and were relegated just six years later. These two incidents, alongside the us versus them mentality Don Revie instilled into the club is probably why Leeds fans nowadays spend most of their time erroneously singing Champions of Europe and rejoicing at the recent demise of their rivals Manchester United.

 

Once again, a period of 10 years went by, a period in which English clubs came to dominate European football, reaching 8 finals and winning 7 of them. Another hallmark of English football came to dominate the headlines was the increasing hooliganism and fan violence, that reached its zenith during that time. Both came to a head at the 1985 European Cup final held in the Heysel stadium in Brussels.

 

Even before the game, the venue itself had been heavily scrutinized by both the press and the officials of the two clubs. The venue had been in a state of disrepair for some time and it was later revealed that UEFA’s representatives sent to inspect it spent just 30 minutes taking a quick look before deciding the decrepit old stadium was fit to host the biggest game in Europe.

 

When Fourth-tier Calais Came Within Inches of Winning the Coupe De France

 

Both sets of club directors asked UEFA to change the venue, but the governing body did not listen to their demands, because why would a governing body listen to clubs, players or fans. They have much better things to do, like corruption. By the mid 80s football hooliganism had plagued the beautiful game for nearly a decade with England being probably the nation most affected by fan violence.

 

English fans were not alone in perpetrating acts such as rioting, looting and organized fights when travelling abroad, but their so-called hooligan firms were the most prominent and best organized. The continental press had already dubbed the travelling fans the English disease and whenever English clubs played in European competitions, hooligans travelled alongside them.

 

With the amount of success English clubs tasted on the European scene, the opportunities for travel were therefore numerous. These opportunities were seized by groups of uneducated, poor and marginalized individuals, living in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, who had never been outside the country and found an identity and a community in their violent organizations.

 

The 1984-85 season was truly the pinnacle of football hooliganism in England. Months before the Heysel final, Millwall fans were responsible for the largest fan riots until then during and after their game against Luton and on the same day the Bradford City stadium fire caused the deaths of 50 people, fights between Birmingham City and Leeds fans caused the death of a 15-year-old boy attending his first ever football game.

 

 

Thatcher’s government had then finally realized, 10 years too late, that cramming a socially and economically frustrated populace in rickety old venues and fueling them with beer is a surefire way to create a culture of violence that would not only affect your own citizens but would also spill over abroad.

 

However, before her commission had any chance of implementing any measures, as government commissions usually spend the first few months deciding what kind of cookies and drinks, they want during their meetings, the Heysel disaster occurred. By all accounts, the buildup to the game was rather peaceful, with Liverpool and Juventus fans drinking together in the various city squares and parks of Brussels.

 

Nonetheless, as both sets of fans became increasingly inebriated by the copious amounts of alcohol sold freely throughout the city and more importantly right outside the gates of the stadium tensions were starting to rise. The stadium’s access points were far too few to cope with the amounts of supporters and many jumped or broke through the old turnstiles or kicked down walls and fences to gain access to the stadium.

 

Many fans claimed in later years that they had travelled without any tickets as they knew they could get into the ground easily. On top of that, a large contingent of non-Liverpool fans also travelled to Belgium, with members of the Chelsea, West Ham or Arsenal hooligan firms making the journey just to loot and fight. As sporadic skirmishes started before kick-off, a large section of Liverpool fans broke the fence dividing them from the Juventus fans and charged at them.

 

Stefan Kovacs – The Best Manager You’ve Never Heard Of

 

The Liverpool supporters were angry at the Juventus fans for the perceived instigation to violence and their skirmishes with other Liverpool fans, as well as the memories from the previous years’ European Cup final when Roma hooligans attacked Liverpool supporters outside the Stadio Olimpico after the game. The fleeing Juventus fans ran into a concrete wall bordering their section and the resulting crush and wall collapse caused 39 casualties.

 

Other Juventus fans from opposing sections of the stadium ran onto the pitch in an attempt to get to their beleaguered colleagues but were stopped by the police and fought with them for two hours. Despite 39 people losing their lives, UEFA and the authorities decided to let the game be played out, with Juventus winning 1-0 through a Michel Platini penalty. The response to this tragedy was brutal, with English clubs being banned from European competitions for 5 years.

 

This should have been a wake-up call for English fans and authorities, but this situation was somehow allowed to continue until in 1989 the Hillsborough disaster forced the English government to enforce the Football Spectators Act. Once again, the ramifications of this final can still be felt to this day, as many journalists have stated that the ban of English teams led to the rise of the Premier League at the beginning of the 1990s.

 

Any worries that the European Cup would be a dull affair without the English clubs were quickly dispelled the next season, when Steaua Bucharest stunned Europe by defeating Barcelona in the final. During the time of the English ban European football morphed into something more similar to what we know today. Clubs began to be owned by billionaires or crooked politicians who really liked their bunga-bunga parties.

 

 

UEFA also decided to start living the good life and rebrand their stuffy old competition to include as many clubs as possible for those nice juicy TV deals. Thus in 1993, the European Cup became the Champions League, to also include the teams that hadn’t been crowned champions in their respective countries. That season Berlusconi’s Milan reached the final at the Olympiastadion in München and looked to deny Marseille their first ever Champions League title.

 

The French team had already lost a final two years prior against Red Star Belgrade and their president Bernard Tapie was determined to see them become the first French team to win Europe’s top competition. The only problem was their title race, which dragged out until the final day, when Marseille was due to play Valenciennes.

 

Hoping to avoid a 90-minute slug fest and potential injuries or fitness issues, Tapie successfully bribed several Valenciennes players to “take their foot off the gas” and Marseille were crowned Ligue 1 champions. In the final, sweeper Basile Boli scored the first goal of the game and Marseille had finally brought old big ears to France.

 

Their happiness would be short lived however, as soon enough the investigations began and the club and Tapie were found guilty of match fixing. Marseille were stripped of their Ligue 1 crown and relegated and Tapie was jailed. Further controversy ensued as Jean-Jacques Eydelie claimed in his autobiography that Marseille players received mysterious injections and pills, some handed out by Tapie himself, that season, a claim backed up by a few of his colleagues.

 

 

For our next inclusion we have to go back a bit, oh and also change sports. In 1988, the world of cycling changed forever, when erythropoietin (EPO) started being used. EPO is a substance our kidneys secrete whenever body cells are starved of oxygen or the body is experiencing anemia. EPO’s main job is to stimulate red blood cell production, which is great for patients with anemia.

 

On the other hand, it’s also great for athletes who want to gain some extra juicy red blood cells so their muscles are nice and oxygenated. As cyclists were pumping themselves up to the eyeballs with EPO, football started taking notice of this new performance-enhancing drug.

 

The beauty of the scheme was that throughout the 90s it was undetectable, as the first reliable testing for it came about during the 2000s. The number of teams that engaged in EPO doping will never be truly known, but one of those teams reached the 1996 Champions League Final between Ajax and Juventus.

 

Can you guess which of the two it is? Can you? You are correct, in 2004 Riccardo Agricola, a doctor who worked for Juventus was sentenced to jail for administering EPO to the club’s players from 1994 to 1998. During that time Juventus won three Serie A titles and reached three consecutive Champions League finals, with their only victory coming against Ajax in 1996.

 

A Lesson in Club Mismanagement: How Hertha Became Berlin’s Second-Best Club

 

Ajax had won the previous years’ edition with the young team led by Louis van Gaal, but played uncharacteristically shaky during the first part of the game. A 13th minute Ravanelli goal meant that Ajax had to chase the equalizer and after Jari Litmanen scored in the 41st minute the game remained tied at 1-1 and the Italians won the penalty shootout.

 

The extent of the doping could never be verified as testing at the time did not detect the substance and thus Juventus themselves did not face any punishment. This scandal appealed to their innate sense of honor and Juventus became a beacon of fair play and respect in European football.

 

Seven years later Juventus once again stood in the Champions League Final. Played at Old Trafford between them and AC Milan the 2003 final was supposed to be one of the best of all time. Two of the best teams from the best and most star-studded league in Europe at the Theatre of Dreams. And the first few minutes seemed to deliver on this promise and Milan struck first through Shevchenko.

 

The goal was not given however, as Rui Costa apparently blocked Gianluigi Buffon’s line of sight, with later replays showing that this was not the case. After a scoreless normal and extra time, it was time for penalties and of course controversy once again ensued.

 

War Heroes, Wheeler-Dealers, Fake Sheikhs and Consulting Detectives on the South Coast of England

 

Dida saved the efforts of David Trezeguet, Marcelo Zalayeta and Paolo Montero and Buffon did the same for Clarence Seedorf and Kakha Kaladze. Both players were off their lines during all of their saves. Shevchenko then put the decisive penalty away and one of the most boring Champions League finals was finally done.

 

After the dull affair of 2003, we got three of the best Champions League finals of the 2000s in a row, as underdogs Porto beat underdogs Monaco 3-0 in 2004, Liverpool magically defeated Milan in Istanbul and in 2006 a final full of legends was to be disputed at the Stade de France.

 

The pinnacle of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal team faced the star-studded Barcelona of Frank Rijkaard, but the ultimate outcome was blighted by the early sendoff of Jens Lehmann. Whilst I don’t argue with the sending-off, it was thoroughly deserved, referee Terje Hauge later admitted to it being a mistake.

 

As Lehmann fouled Samuel Eto’o outside the box, the ball rolled to Ludovic Giuly, who put it into the back of the net. The referee brought play back however awarding a red card and a free kick. He later admitted that the better course of action would have been to let the goal stand and award a yellow to Lehmann.

 

 

Seeing as Arsenal managed to take the lead even down to 10 men a case could be made that if Lehmann had not been sent off Arsenal would have been the better team on the night and won the final outright. The very next season Liverpool and Milan once again met in the final and after the legendary match in 2005 expectations from neutrals were high.

 

The final, held in Athens was mired in issues before the start of the game, as the Greek authorities let several thousands of fans without tickets or brandishing fake tickets into the venue and then closed the stadium off, leaving several thousand genuine ticket holders outside. Tear gas and batons were liberally used “defuse the situation” on the fans who voiced their displeasure at the fact they had paid a large sum of money only to be denied their right to enter the stadium.

 

After the incidents in the buildup the authorities labeled Liverpool fans as the worst fans in the world. Once the game got underway, Liverpool couldn’t convert their early chances and were punished in the 45th minute when Inzaghi, like he always does, deflected a free kick right in front of Reina. The only problem was the deflection came off his arm and whilst the arm was next to his body, I genuinely believe VAR would have overturned it if it happened today.

 

We fast forward all the way to 2016 to find our old friends Real Madrid facing their bitter rivals Atletico. In the previous final played between the two, Atletico led most of the game until Sergio Ramos scored the equalizer in the third minute of extra time. This time around it was Ramos once again who scored for Real in the 15th minute from a Toni Kroos free kick. Sadly for Atletico, no one seemed to signal to the referee that Ramos was offside and the goal stood.

 

How a Betting Scandal Saw Hellas Verona Win Their Only Scudetto

 

Just as the two teams gathered themselves at halftime Mark Clattenburg was shown the video replay of the offside goal, admitting he and his team made the wrong decision. Atletico managed to level the score in the 79th minute but lost on 5-3 on penalties. Two years later Ramos would be even more instrumental in Real Madrid’s final against Liverpool.

 

Although this final is mostly remembered for Loris Karius’ horrendous performance in goal, people seem to forget that it was Ramos that elbowed the German keeper in the face. This came after Ramos dislocated Mohamed Salah’s shoulder when he brought the Egyptian player to the ground. Ramos escaped both offences without a yellow card, not to mention a red.

 

With Salah out of commission and Real scoring in the 51st minute, Liverpool managed to equalize through Sadio Mane 4 minutes later but the concussion suffered by Karius ultimately decided the game for the Spanish side. Two years later both teams stood in the 2022 Champions League final, however this time Ramos was not on the pitch so everyone was safe. However, the people surrounding the pitch weren’t.

 

Just like in 2007, Liverpool fans were once again victims of poor organization. The issues began as soon as Liverpool fans started to make their way to the stadium, departing from their fan zone. Most fans were forced to take an alternate route causing overcrowding on the public transport network since their primary route was closed.

 

Clairefontaine: The Secret to France’s Success?

 

You probably don’t need me to tell you the reason behind it as you have probably realized that the French tradition of striking was upheld that day. The route designated for fans next to the stadium was incredibly tight and caused a massive traffic jam with a huge risk of crushing. The overwhelmed, understaffed and undertrained stewards could not contain the mass of people heading their way and French authorities made no effort to redirect fans away from the congestion.

 

Security checks were abandoned and chaos ensued as people without tickets made their way through, including local youths who attacked supporters. Meanwhile, other areas designated for Liverpool supporters were sparsely used with authorities making no efforts to redirect fans towards them, instead employing heavy-handed policing to corral the fans towards their areas and keep the local youths at bay.

 

With police stewards and organizers overwhelmed, the police reverted to their default setting, which is pepper spray supporters and then blame Liverpool fans. The kickoff was delayed by more than 15 minutes with the French organizers stating a late arrival of fans being the reason. It seems that the shadow of Heysel and Hillsborough is still looming over any crowd of Liverpool fans travelling away and whenever there are issues, they become a quick and easy excuse for the incompetent authorities.

 

And so, we come to the present day and the most recent Champions League Final. And what better way to end, than the exact way we began? Once again, just like in 1957 Real Madrid took on an underdog, this time in the form of Borussia Dortmund. Despite Dortmund dominating the early exchanges, Real remained just as dangerous as ever on the counterattack.

 

 

One of their main sources of peril for the German side was Vinicius Junior. The same Vinicius was extremely fortunate to receive only a red card after a very late and rough challenge on Gregor Kobel in the 35th minute. Whilst I can agree that awarding a straight red in a Champions League Final for a late challenge can change the course of the game and most referees are understandably reluctant to do so, a crackdown on diving has been at the forefront of UEFA’s ethos for some time now.

 

Whilst we have mostly escaped the disgusting diving and moaning one could find in let’s say an El Clasico of the early 2010s, Vinicius, already on a yellow, did not receive a second yellow for a dive in the 49th minute, despite the referee having every right to show a card. Instead, he booked Nico Schlotterbeck for arguing against the decision, and Real would go on to win 2-0 courtesy of goals from Dani Carvajal and Vinicius.

 

By: Eduard Holdis / @He_Ftbl

Featured Image: @GabFoligno / AFP

 

 

EmailLinkedIn