Teams who were stripped of titles: Senegal join Juventus, Marseille & more… | OneFootball

Senegal have sensationally been stripped of their AFCON title after CAF upheld Morocco’s appeal over their opponents’ conduct in the final.

In an unprecedented ruling, CAF awarded Morocco the trophy and a 3-0 victory following Senegal’s walk-off in protest at a late Moroccan penalty.

We’ve dusted off the history books to examine five other teams that were stripped of their titles long after the final whistle.

Marseille (1992-93)

Marseille won both Ligue 1 and the Champions League in 1992-93, but were stripped of the former after being found guilty of match-fixing.

Controversial club president Bernard Tapie arranged to offer a 250,000 franc bribe to Valenciennes players Christophe Robert, Jorge Burrachaga and Jacques Glassman to go easy on Marseille in a crucial late-season fixture.

Valenciennes duly lost the game, which sealed Marseille’s title, but Glassman reported the bribery to the referee, having turned down Tapie’s offer.

Marseille were relegated to Ligue 2 by the French authorities, but second-place PSG refused the title. Reportedly, this was because their owners Canal+ were worried about losing TV revenue in the Marseille region.

The disgraced French club were allowed to keep their Champions League trophy, despite further allegations of match-fixing and doping.

Juventus (2004-05 & 2005-06)

You’ll all be aware of Calciopoli and how it stripped Juventus of two Serie A titles in the mid-2000s.

General Manager Luciano Moggi was found guilty of manipulating referees in Juve’s favour over an extended period. He was given a permanent ban from football and the club were relegated to Serie B.

Juve have never accepted the ruling, counting the two titles in their unofficial tally and appealing against the decision to award Inter the Scudetto in 2005-06.

Genoa (2004-05)

The Allemandi Affair is the overlooked B-Side of mid-00s Italian football corruption scandals, but it cost Genoa their Serie B title.

On the final day of 2004-05, Genoa were looking to win promotion to Serie A for the first time in a decade. They had a home fixture against already-relegated and heavily-indebted Venezia. Easy, right?

Genoa’s directors still left nothing to chance, paying Venezia general manager Giuseppe Pagliara €250,000 to throw the game. The money, deliciously, was found in his car.

The Italian Football Federation responded by stripping Genoa of the title and placing them instead at the bottom of the final Serie B table, resulting in instant relegation to Serie C1.

It also turned out that promotion rivals Torino had paid Venezia to try harder in the Genoa match. A glorious mess.

Elgin City (1992-93)

Elgin City swept all before them in the 1992-93 Highland League, beating lowly Forres Mechanics 6-0 in their final match to win the title.

The catch was Elgin switched the final fixture from a Saturday to a Friday evening, allowing them to field several players who’d have been suspended for the original date.

This included player-manager John Teasdale, evaporating the claim that it’d been an unwitting mistake.

Elgin were stripped of their title, but runners-up Cove Rangers didn’t want to win by default. So the Highland League went without a winner for the first time in more than a hundred years.

As recently as 2018, Elgin appealed to the SFA to have their 1993 players’ medals restored. This was not successful.

Shanghai Shenhua (2003)

Back in the 2010s, Shanghai Shenhua were the Al-Nassr of their time.

Players like Didier Drogba, Nicolas Anelka, and Carlos Tevez all played for the Chinese club as they threw big money at ageing foreign stars. In the 2000s, they used their money to pay referees instead.

In 2011, it emerged that Shenhua’s general manager, Lou Shifang, had been responsible for organising bribes to the referee for a crucial Shanghai derby match eight years previously

The Chinese authorities didn’t strip them of the title, but it was then revealed Shenhua had also used bribery to fix a match against Shaanxi Guoli.

Ten years after the event, Sheunha were stripped of their 2003 title and the season was written off with no champion.