The Damned United

To follow football, or any sport you have to be a conspiracy theorist. What else could explain your team's disastrous performance (or even run of performances) other than the combined actions of UFOs, men-in-black, shadowy government organisations, phone-tapping and anti-Castro Cubans?


Except the problem, where football conspiracy theories are concerned, is that on more than one occasion they have exhibited a strong likelihood of being right, or at least on the right track. Tell that to Leeds United supporters. If they got their heads together, would probably be able to figure out what really happened in Dallas on that day in November 1963, not to mention Roswell and the Turin Shroud.

These days Leeds United compete in the lower divisions of English league club football and have even had to stave off bankruptcy in recent years. But back in the 1970s Leeds held a prestigious place in English football and were even European contenders. But that's as far as they got ... or were allowed to get.

Leeds reached the final of the 1973 European Cup Winners Cup where they faced AC Milan. The Italian side clinched the title with a single goal but the result has been hotly debated and contested to this day. You can watch excerpts from the match below:

Referee Christos Michas was judged to have made a number of unfair decisions and Leeds requested a replay (a request that was denied by UEFA, not unpredictably, but it was later proven that Michas had been involved in match-fixing on other occasions and was later banned from refereeing for life. According to World Referee:

Michas made a series of very dubious decisions during the match (ignoring a Milan player handling the ball in the area, sending off a Leeds player but not his opponent, annulling a goal etc) all favoring Milan. In fact he was so bad the neutral audience shouted it was a shame, so bad that UEFA banned him for life after the match, fixing was proved later but Milan still got to keep the Cup.

In 2009, more than 35 years later, MEP for Yorkshire and Humber Richard Corbett petitioned UEFA to investigate, more than 35 years later.

Leeds fared no better in the final of the 1975 European Cup against Bayern Munich. Although no allegations of corruption have ever been lodged or proven the match was not without controversy:

Bayern won 2-0, but not before referee Michel Kitabdjian had ruled out Peter Lorimer's valid goal and denied Leeds two clear-cut penalties. - The Telegraph, Football's Great Conspiracy Theories

Arising out of the affair Leeds supporters coined a terrace chant: We are the Champions, Champions of Europe. It is said that it is still heard in Elland Road.

Aqua Sports and Amateur Dramatics

Diving is the curse of the modern game. Cheating is bad enough in itself but worse still when it goes rewarded!

Players these days seem to hit the floor quicker than a bucket and a mop and the Beautiful Game is being transformed before our eyes, into something akin to those lace and corset dramas of a bygone era - ladies feinting and swooning all-round, at the mere hint of a manly presence.

But all is fair in love and war and football falls somewhere in between the two. As long as referees are going to be taken in by this kind of amateur theatrics, what else are players going to do?

This however must be a candidate for one of the worst dives ever. If this isn't proof that it's gone too far, we don't know what is.