Soccer is a beautiful game on the pitch, but it’s also a sport with a history of scandals. Modern-day soccer is a multibillion-dollar industry, which fuels scandals. However, FIFA (the not-so-cherished governing body of international soccer) is also sometimes responsible for scandals that rock the game. These are some of the biggest soccer scandals in the sport’s history.
The Calciopoli match-fixing scandal in Serie A was exposed shortly before the FIFA World Cup. This was a scandal in which Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina, and Lazio actively conspired to assign favorable (biased) referees to their matches. Wiretapped discussions between the Juventus general manager and match officials exposed one of the biggest match-fixing soccer scandals in history.
Juventus was the most guilty club, duly stripped of two league titles and relegated to Serie B as a result of the exposed scandal. The other clubs received heavy points deductions for their parts in Calciopoli. Yet, the scandal seemed to galvanize the Italian team that won the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
In 2015, Swiss authorities raided FIFA’s favorite Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich. That raid exposed FIFA’s money laundering, racketeering, and wire fraud schemes. It was one of the biggest soccer scandals, exposing that FIFA executives had accepted multimillion-dollar bribes in exchange for marketing and media rights.
The fallout of this scandal was quite significant, with many FIFA executives arrested. It also led to the downfall of Sepp Blatter as FIFA president. He was replaced by Gianni Infantino, who ‘promised’ to clean up FIFA for the good of soccer.
The Marseille-Valenciennes Bribery Scandal was another match-fixing affair. Marseille’s president and general manager caused one of the biggest soccer scandals in history when they offered bribes to numerous Valenciennes players, asking them to take it easy in a match against Marseille with a Champions League final looming for Les Olympiens. However, one of those Valenciennes players blew the whistle on the bribes offered.
Marseille won the 1993 Champions League, but were stripped of the 1992–93 French League title for the bribery scandal. Relegation to France’s second division was another penalty for Marseille. Marseille’s president also went to prison.
The FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) is the latest scandal to rock soccer’s world governing body. Gianni Infantino proposed the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme, which would sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors. This would effectively set up a commercial subsidiary for managing the FIFA World Cup.
Although not necessarily strictly unlawful, the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) sparked outrage as a proposal that would turn the World Cup into an investment product. UEFA threatened to boycott the World Cup if FIFA proceeded with the scheme. This threat ultimately forced FIFA to scrap the plan, but the fallout continues with UEFA claiming criminal mismanagement and calling for the resignation of Gianni Infantino. However, FIFA has hit back by accusing UEFA of orchestrating a misinformation campaign. At any rate, Gianni Infantino currently remains FIFA president, with much of the soccer world demanding his resignation.
Gianni Infantino was at the heart of another of the biggest soccer scandals in 2026 when President Donald Trump asked FIFA’s president to review Folarin Balogun’s red card received in a World Cup match against Bosnia. The red card would have ruled Balogun out of the USA’s game against Belgium. However, FIFA’s disciplinary committee overturned Balogun’s suspension after Trump’s intervention, which completely bypassed panel protocol.
Consequently, Balogun played in the USA’s match against Belgium, which Belgium won 4-1. That was a huge let-off for Infantino, as this could have been a potentially huge scandal if the USA had won with Balogun playing. Nevertheless, there was a heavy backlash, with UEFA stating that FIFA had crossed a red line. The Belgian FA withdrew support for Infantino’s re-election campaign for FIFA presidency. It was an explosive scandal that showed soccer and politics don’t always mix well.
The Premier League has confirmed Manchester City to be guilty of extensively breaching 114 financial fair play rules. These charges include failing to provide accurate financial info, masking true sponsorship deals, and hiding player and manager remuneration packages. Man City’s financial misdemeanours must now be included among the biggest soccer scandals in history.
This means that many of Man City’s glories during the Abu Dhabi United Group era have been based on financial cheating. It remains very unclear what the outcome of this latest soccer scandal will be. If Man City has breached 114 financial fair play rules dating back to 2009, then the sanctions must surely be severe. A huge Man City points deduction, or Premier League relegation, could be the outcome for the Sky Blues.
What those biggest soccer scandals in history above highlight is that the beautiful game is very vulnerable to corruption, political overreach, and financial manipulation. This is not good for the game, as attempts to bypass rules undermine the integrity of soccer. Nor is FIFA’s global ‘leadership’ of the game helping, as soccer’s global governing body often generates scandals of its own making.
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