Most Weird Sports Scandals: Our society loves to gossip. Be it a rumour about celebs or a scandal in sports, we love to bandy about the embarrassments of others.
A few years ago, perhaps the athlete most put on a pedestal, Tiger Woods, had his own fall from grace, and one of the most magnificent of them all. When it came out that he had several affairs, he received more straight headlines in the newspaper than on the days following 9/11. Though it may have been the biggest scandal, it is evidently not the only one in sports history.
Since its more than 25 years of Pete Rose being banned from baseball, we decided to look back at 10 of the biggest, most shocking and most weird sports scandals in history.
Top 10 Most Weird Sports Scandals.
10. Luis Resto
Luis Resto is a retired, American professional boxer in the welterweight division. In 1983, he became responsible for the saddest moment in boxing history as he got prepared with boxing gloves against the undefeated Billy Collins Jr. in the ring and an unusually long hard battle with this yielded 10 rounds, which ended the career of both professional athletes. The Ring Magazine chose the duel 1997 Dirtiest boxing match of all time.
When Collins’ father and trainer, Billy, Sr., came to shake Luis’s hand, he discovered that his gloves felt thinner than normal. It was revealed in an investigation that someone had removed an ounce of padding from each of Luis’s gloves.
9. O. J. Simpson
Orenthal James Simpson is a former American football player. OJ Simpson was one of the best running backs in the 1970s, both in college and later in the pros in the National Football League. Simpson’s nickname “The Juice” comes from the abbreviation of his name OJ = Orange Juice.
In 1994, he was charged with the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas in 2007 and charged with numerous felonies, including armed robbery and kidnapping. He was found guilty and sentenced to 33 years’ imprisonment in 2008 and is serving his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock.
8. Protest Salute
The protest at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City was performed during the medal ceremony for 200 meters by the African-American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos. The protest is considered to be one of the most famous political protests of the 20th century.
The President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Avery Brundage, classified the behavior as a domestic political demonstration and unsuitable idea for the Olympic Games. In an immediate reaction to the protests, he ordered removal of Smith and Carlos from the team of US and had to leave the Olympic Village.
7. Pete Rose
Pete Rose is a former American baseball player. He is one of the best players of his generation and still holds some records in Major League Baseball.
After he retired as an active player, three years later in August 1989, Pete Rose agreed to permanent ineligibility from baseball amidst accusations that he gambled on baseball games while playing for and managing his team, Cincinnati Reds.
6. Balco Scandal
The BALCO scandal is a doping scandal by the American company Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative(BALCO). BALCO supplied anabolic steroids to professional athletes.
BALCO was founded in 1984 with headquarters in Burlingame in California. In 2003 prosecutor officially took on investigation of BALCO in connection with doping allegations.
5. Bountygate
The scandal of the sizes of the New Orleans Saints is often termed as Bountygate. It was an incident that involved several defensive players of the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League, found to have built a system that assigned bonus, or “bounty” for performance prohibited by Regulation NFL. The system was started in 2009 and ended in 2011. Among other things, players were discovered to cash bonuses to deliberately injure opponents.
4. Hansie Cronje
Wessels John “Hans” Cronje was a well-known South African cricketer and captain of South Africa’s national cricket team. He started with the team of the Free State Orange during the season 1987 – 1988. He was selected for the first time for the South African team in One Day Internationals in 1992.
In 2000, Cronje is believed to have been paid by bookmakers to rig matches which he finally admitted. Two years later, he died in a plane crash.
3. Barry Bonds
Bonds is a former American baseball who played with the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants. He holds numerous records of Major League Baseball.
He is regarded as a key figure in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) scandal since 2003. He was indicted on obstruction of justice charges in 2007.
2. Hillsborough Disaster
The Hillsborough disaster was a tough audience misfortune with 96 dead and 766 wounded on the 15th April 1989 at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. It occurred during the semi-final of the FA Cup between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, and is considered one of the greatest disasters in the history of football.
The Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers addressed in their song “SYMM” (South Yorkshire Mass Murderer) from their album This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, the role of the police and security forces, which should have led the cause for the tragedy.
1. Soviet Win over U.S
In the 1972 Summer Olympics Basketball contests were held at Rudi-Sedlmayer-Halle in Munich. The venue, Rudi-Sedlmayer-Hall in Siegenburgerstrasse (later Rudi Sedlmayer Hall, today’s Audi Dome ) was packed with 6635 spectators.
With only three seconds remaining in the contest, the Soviets managed to inbound the ball from their own end line and scored the game-winning basket at the final buzzer.
The Soviet Union won the gold medal, after a controversial final against the United States. It was the first ever loss for Team USA since the sport began Olympic play in 1936.
Written By: AHSAN HAYAT
