The Marseille Scandal - How Blind Ambition Won and Lost European Glory

2012-02-02T20:59:00.001+07:00

That was de facto the case with the French club Olympique de Marseille of the late 1980's and early 1990's. Marseille were the most thriving club in France as resplendent in their brilliant white soccer uniforms they won the French first group (Ligue 1) four seasons in a row, and their brilliant run of success culminated in 1993, when they became the first ever (and till now the only) French club to win the European Cup.

The man behind Marseille's success was Bernard Tapie. Tapie was a extremely thriving businessman and sports lover who already ran a cycling team and had been a priest in the French government when he took over Marseille Football Club and decided to drive it to the very top, not just in France but all over Europe and finally the World. To pursue his foresight Tapie invested a large sum of money in the club, signing some of the cream of European players of the era, including Jean-Pierre Papin, Chris Waddle, Klaus Allofs, Abedi Pelé, Didier Deschamps, Marcel Desailly, Rudi Völler and Eric Cantona. On the coaching front, Tapie, a extremely charismatic personality, even succeeded in persuading Kaiser Franz Beckenbauer to leave his popular Bayern Munich to manage the club for a season

A man of gigantic ambition and drive, Bernard Tapie saw his dreams become a reality within just a few seasons, when in May 1993. Basile Boli scored the only goal in the European Champions League final against A.C. Milan held in the Olympic Stadium in Munich. After 38 barren years, France could finally boast a team that had won a major European competition. It seems thinkable, that just six weeks later, Marseille's and Tapie's world would be turned upside down as he and his popular club would be complex in a scandal that would set the club back five years and tarnish every victory that they had gained in the years that Tapie was at the helm.

The scandal broke when a player from the mid-table French club Valenciennes, Christophe Robert made allegations to the press that a Marseille player Jean-Jacques Eydelie had made an offer to him and to his team- mates, to throw the game in the middle of the clubs that had taken place a few weeks before the final. Robert admitted that he had suitable the bribe of 250,000 francs yet overcome by guilt had not spent it, and instead had buried it in his Aunt's garden. The matter made its way into the police hand's and after some grueling interrogation Eydelie admitted that he had bribed Robert, but under pressure from the club's then general manager, Jean-Pierre Bernes.. From there on all roads lead to president Bernard Tapie. Tapie eventfully confessed that he had authorized the attempted bribing of the Valenciennes players as he wanted to have the league title sown up so as the players could be free to concentrate on the final against Milan.

Marseille were stripped of the French title that season and later relegated to the second group not just because of the bribing scandal over financial regularities. Tapie, Bernes and Eydelie were later imprisoned.

The bribing scandal forced Marseille to relinquish their 1992-93 group 1 title and the right to play in the Uefa Champions League 1993-94, the 1993 European Super Cup and the 1993 Intercontinental Cup, as well as being demoted to the second division. The scant compensation that Tapie could gain from the whole sordid affair was that his popular Marseille were not stripped of their Champions League.

Since the scandal of 1993 Marseille have failed to win a particular trophy and Tapie has gone missing from the French football landscape

The Marseille Scandal - How Blind Ambition Won and Lost European Glory

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The Marseille Scandal - How Blind Ambition Won and Lost European Glory