The Guardian reports a very amusing scandal in Ghanaian football. If two teams both won on the last day of their season, promotion to the top division would be decided by goal difference. At half-time it was 1-0 to the promotion hopefuls in each game. Then, it is alleged, both managers or other interested parties bribed the opposition to concede a few extra goals in the second half…
Final scores: one finished 28-0, the other 31-0. All four teams involved have been punished by relegation, fines and loads of suspensions (46 people, a year each). Manager of the team that had, for a moment, won promotion is Abedi Pele, who I remember as a terrific player. He says “My contention is that while the scoreline may raise eyebrows, it doesn’t provide irrefutable proof that the match was fixed.” Of course he is right, and when I am elected the next Miss World I plan to use the same argument, that a highly unattractive 47 year old man may be a surprising winner, but that doesn’t prove anything underhand is involved.