What is the biggest robbery in football history?
Ask most football fans and they will say there’s a robbery against their own side almost every week.
Such is our blind passion and bias towards our own club, we often believe every decision that goes against our side is wrong.
But one Twitter thread is asking fans to widen that out a little and think about the biggest robberies in the history of the game.
We’re not talking about a throw-in being given the wrong way or an undeserved yellow card. We’re talking about scandals.
We’ve trawled through some of the popular answers to the thread and compiled them in a list below:
What is the biggest robbery in football history?
— Theo (@Thogden) March 22, 2022
QUIZ: Can you name the footballer based on their Wikipedia page?
Robin van Persie’s red card vs Barcelona
Van Persie was shown a second yellow card at the Camp Nou for having a shot about a millisecond after the referee blew the whistle for offside. Arsenal were 3-2 ahead on aggregate at the time before they crashed out with 10 men.
UEFAlona, Biggest robbery of all times.pic.twitter.com/KoknvJ4XbD https://t.co/jhv4YuMcMF
— Saliba 🔴 🇵🇸 (@SalibaEra_) March 23, 2022
Lionel Messi’s lack of Ballon d’Ors since 2013
Does the Argentine deserve to have won Ballons d’Or than the seven he’s already got?
Messi winning only 3 out of 8 available Ballon d’Ors since 2013 https://t.co/cCimw2gseN
— M (@undiadepartit_) March 23, 2022
Thierry Henry’s handball vs Ireland
In a World Cup qualifier, Henry’s handball saw France triumph over Ireland and the Irish haven’t forgotten about it.
What made this even worse is that France were tragic in that World Cup. We never make world cups either 😔 https://t.co/WINHuMExSV pic.twitter.com/W2eeU5X4sA
— 🔴🔴🔴 (@fellalafella2) March 22, 2022
Harry Maguire for £80m
You won’t be shocked to hear there were quite a few shouts for this one…
80 mil for Harry Maguire https://t.co/Hs49bDxApd
— Ryan (@Ryan_Mcdowell) March 23, 2022
Italy vs South Korea at the 2002 World Cup
It’s not even close https://t.co/PYkOY9h8wL pic.twitter.com/0tOvK1dyfC
— Italian Football News 🇮🇹 (@footitalia1) March 23, 2022
Italy really were robbed against South Korea in the quarter finals of the 2002 World Cup, weren’t they?
Diego Maradona’s handball against England
Of course, this had to be mentioned.
It has to be this 😂
Beautiful all the same https://t.co/ddCI666QJf pic.twitter.com/NpYgHzcoOZ
— Rob O’Connell (@RobOConnell18) March 23, 2022
Frank Lampard’s ‘goal’ vs Germany in 2010 World Cup
Another heartbreaking England moment…
Lampard 2010 World Cup https://t.co/KzzVpA5Hfh
— Armando Benavides (@thatgoon_messi) March 23, 2022
The game that ended Arsenal’s unbeaten run vs Man Utd
Arsenal’s 49-game unbeaten run came to an end after a 2-0 loss to Manchester United. But how did United not get at least one man sent off that day? Not to mention Wayne Rooney’s dive for the penalty…
this was satanic. pic.twitter.com/zX5Ao4CnLS https://t.co/zbnvpLo81F
— the gotham city heartbeat (@rundejirun) March 22, 2022
Chelsea vs Barcelona in 2009
“IT’S A DISGRACE!” screamed Didier Drogba. Yeah, we agree. It was.
13 years later, still not over this.
Could never like Barcelona after this night. https://t.co/5KgacAa1iQ pic.twitter.com/JSJJsfC8dr
— Rajat Dutta (@RajatDutta13) March 23, 2022
Sheffield United’s ‘non-goal’ that kept Aston Villa up
It’s even worse when you consider that we had goal-line technology – it just failed to work. Villa survived by one point ahead of Bournemouth and Watford.
#afcb https://t.co/gtPai3rOLA pic.twitter.com/m6DO7tVCNN
— 🧃🌍 (@goatedlerma) March 22, 2022
Luis Suarez’s handball vs Ghana in the 2010 World Cup
Suarez denied Ghana a place in the World Cup semi finals with a handball on the goal-line in the last minute of extra-time. Suarez was sent off, Ghana missed the penalty before Uruguay went on to win in the shootout. Now that’s a robbery.
That handball by Luis Suarez against Ghana literally traumatized an entire continent 😭😭😭 https://t.co/iFgnPRNcP0
— Christopher ⚡️ (@chrisiganga) March 23, 2022
That’s 11 shocking examples of robbery in football. But what, in your opinion, is the biggest robbery the sport has ever seen?
Let us know in the Facebook comments section.
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