Last soccer year was remembered for many bright moments. First of all, it was Euro 2024, where the Spanish national team shone brightly and the Georgian national team opened for everyone in a new way. But even this tournament was marred by several scandals. While fans are making football prediction for today we can remember a few of the biggest scandals of last year.
The new format of the Champions League
Everyone was talking about the introduction of a new format. Representatives of UEFA convinced everyone that this option would better level the chances of teams and would allow more interesting matches with results for today btts and equal confrontations. Accordingly, the audience will be more interested, and the clubs will earn more money.
But clubs believe that such innovations only increase the number of matches per year. At the same time, the players can no longer withstand the loads and the clubs’ payrolls only expand. To spend the season with 15-18 players in the squad is already unrealistic.
At the same time, sports organizations require compliance with financial fair play, which only increases the scandal. Many clubs are surprisingly not performing well in the European Cup and this has become a reason to argue about the correctness of the innovation. Let’s see if the new format of the Euro cups will take hold, but the fact that it has already become more scandalous than spectacular is a fact.
Demirala’s disqualification at the Euros
Imagine that you play as a center back and in the 1/8 finals of the Euros you score a double in the opponents’ goal. Your goals:
- take the team to the quarterfinals;
- become a player’s first double for the national team;
- bring the love of the country from the fans.
It’s a beautiful story for Demiral, isn’t it? But in the end, he will face a 2-match suspension. The fact is that the player showed a gesture symbolizing the nationalist movement in Turkey. The footballer claimed that on emotions he wanted to demonstrate some national gesture, but in the end, he was disqualified.
Because of this misdemeanor, the Turkish national team lost in the quarterfinals, because the Netherlands easily passed through the zone where Demiral should have been. And the scandal was the reason for the team’s low mood for the match. That’s how a player from a hero became a scandalizer.
Real boycotted the Ballon d’Or ceremony.
Last season Real showed incredible soccer and everyone was sure that its main star Vinicius would get the Ballon d’Or. But a day before the award presentation Real learned that the winner would be Rodri.
The team management regarded such information as disrespect and the club refused to come to the ceremony. At the same time, Carlo Ancelotti was recognized as coach of the year, and Real was recognized as the best club. According to rumors the day before the award, Vinízus even managed to celebrate the victory, but in the end, he did not receive the Golden Ball, and a whole scandal came out.
Mudryk caught doping
In 2023, the Ukrainian winger moved to Chelsea for 70 million Euros. This is a record transfer for a Ukrainian player. But in Chelsea, he could not play at the right level. And now, at the moment when something started to work, Mykhailo was caught doping.
Now Mudryk faces a 4-year disqualification and it is the end of his career as a top-football player. According to many sources, meldonium was found after matches in the national team of Ukraine. There are rumors that Chelsea even plans to sue the Ukrainian Football Federation. The player himself has already initiated an autopsy of the B sample to prove his innocence. But the chances of success are extremely low.
Conclusion
Of course, this is not all the scandals of the past year, which many analysts and representatives of xGscore.io analyzed over the past year. We can remember Cucurella’s hand play in the match against Germany at the Euros and Pogba’s doping scandal. But it was the scandals mentioned in the article that were the most discussed last year. We hope that 2025 will be less scandalous and more soccer.
