Olympique Marseille: Used-to-be Champions League winner and a sad end

In the 1993 season - the time when the European Cup was abolished and replaced by the shiny Champions League with a completely new format, the first club for the championship were not the former champions in the past such as Real Madrid, AC Milan, Liverpool or Bayern Munich but Olympique de Marseille.The southern French port city team proved they were the strongest club in the old continent at that time.

The story may sound surprising, because at the moment, Marseille is not a strong team, a force of Europe even though they are chasing PSG on the Ligue 1 rankings. But in the past, it was not PSG but Marseille that was really a symbol of French football. They reached the final of the European Cup in 1991 and only lost to the legendary Red Star Belgrade of Dejan Savicevic, Darko Pancev, Sinisa Mihajlovic. However, reaching the second final in three years and being crowned champion was what not many people would have expected.

Join Anzfootball.com to watch all live football on tv. 

1992/93 Champions League Format

That season, the Champions League had a rather strange format. Only 8 teams were divided into two groups of four, with the teams in each group playing first and second leg. That is, each team played a total of 6 group stage matches. For each win, teams are awarded two points and one point for each draw. At the end of the group stage, the top two teams from the two groups advanced to the finals.

In the same group with 3 clubs, Rangers, Club Brugge and CSKA Moscow, Marseille live with legendary players like Marcel Desailly, Deschamps did not have much difficulty to qualify for the group stage. With 12 points after 6 matches, the French team passed the group stage in the top position.
In the remaining group, it was not surprising that AC Milan was the team with the next ticket to the final. In terms of squad, Fabio Capello's AC Milan at that time deserved the title of unrivaled.

They still own the legendary defensive bows Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Alessandro Costacurta and Mauro Tassotti. Though  only Van Basten and Rijkaard  in  the Dutch trio stayed and Gullit was old, Milan instead had the superstar Jean-Pierre Papin moving from Marseille. In addition to the superstars, Milan also has such other bright players like Gianluigi Lentini, Demetrio Albertini, Daniele Massaro and Roberto Donadoni.

1993 Champions League Final: Marseille vs AC Milan

On May 26, 1993 at the Olympic Stadium in Germany, Marseille and AC Milan stood on the threshold of history. If one of the two teams won, they would become the first champion of the UEFA Champions League - a tournament with a completely new name and format. Obviously, this was not an easy test for the army of the late coach Raymond Goethals. The last time the two teams met in this tournament, the French club were the ones who won with a strong score of 4-1 after the first and second legs of the quarter-finals. So, Marseille had no reason to be afraid of the Italian football giant at that time.

Indeed, Marseille had proven itself to be a dirty rival of AC Milan. Entering the final with a streak of 10 wins in all competitions, AC Milan was clearly the more appreciated team. Yet Marseille won. The team of Abedi Pele, Marcel Desailly, Fabien Barthez, Rudi Voller, Alen Boksic and leader Didier Deschamps knocked down mighty AC Milan in the final with tight football calculated by the opponent. Not too surprised, but the whole of Europe clearly looked at Marseille with more awe.

Under the guidance of the late coach Raymond Goethals, Marseille had for themselves a reasonable strategy and competition. A mighty AC Milan, in the 40th minute of the final, the centre-back Basile Boli ran to the touchline begging coach Raymond Goethals to let him play as he was desperately struggling with injury. Three minutes later, Boli somehow headed up to head over Sebastiano Rossi, scoring the only goal of the game.

The Port City team made everyone who watched the game gasp. A disciplined tight play and a goal from Basile Boli were enough to sink Rossi, overcoming the biggest obstacle of this tournament to become the first and only French club to date. Now to the top of Europe.
Two days later, Marseille won against the great rival Paris Saint-Germain and officially successfully defended the domestic title. In fact, that match only had procedural and visual significance, because 7 days before this magical moment, Marseille had soon risen thanks to a victory over Valenciennes.

The aura fades out

Scandal Marseille vs Valenciennes 1993

The joy of Marseille's Champions League victory didn’t last long then the match-fixing scandal with Valenciennes in Ligue 1 was exposed. The mastermind behind this incident was the boss of Marseille at that time Bernard Tapie - Minister of Urban Affairs, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Adidas.

In the midst of joyful applause, the truth behind the velvet curtain gradually revealed. As it turned out, Marseille was involved in a match-fixing case that shocked European football. The French team took the initiative and asked Valenciennes to kick loosely to at the same time secure the Domestic Throne and keep the mainstay for the decisive battle with AC Milan.

The club's general manager Jean-Pierre Bernes was contacted  by Jorge Burruchaga, Jacques Glassmann, and Christophe Robert on phone and suggested to receive money, in exchange for helping Marseille easily pocket three points without losing strength or worrying about the squad chipping. Jean-Jacques Eydelie - Marseille's rookie was a hook player at the time. He has quite a close relationship with the Valenciennes players.

In 2006, in his autobiography, Eydelie revealed that Tapie called him and said: "Tell your former teammates not to act like idiots and ruin Marseille's dream of going back to Munich, okay?"

Robert took the money. Burruchaga, despite not being indignant,was accused of showing a responsive attitude, leading to deviant behavior. Only Glassmann refused and informed Valenciennes management. Rumors spread and the official investigation was expanded. Tapie reports sick and declines all appointments. He believes the authorities do not have enough evidence.

However, it all came crashing down on June 30. Robert confessed and led the police to his back garden and dug up the envelope containing the money, which contained 250,000 francs, equivalent to about 30,000 euros.

This European scandal has caused Marseille to lose the Ligue 1 championship blindly, and also be banned from the Champions League next season. Tapie was arrested and jailed for 2 years and 8 months, and was stripped of his citizenship for the next 3 years. When Tapie was officially charged, Marseille was also demoted by the court in season 94/95.

Scandal related to doping

But it didn’t stop there. In 2006, a shocking truth continued to be revealed by Jean-Jacques Eydelie. The former Marseille midfielder confessed:

The only time I accepted to take amphetamines was right before the Champions League final against AC Milan. Except for Bastia, all the teams I've played for used doping. The players were injected a lot before the game and when we entered the game we felt that our fitness had increased significantly. The only one who refused the injections was Rudi Voller.

Eydelie's narration was shocking news for Milan and also for Italian football because the two heroes of the Marseille squad for the 92/93 season, Marcel Desailly and Didier Deschamps, both moved to play and became famous in the world and in Serie A league.
Immediately, after knowing that Marseille had given drugs to players, Milan asked its lawyers to review the complaint procedure to the Court of Sport. Many stars in Milan's squad that day also expressed hope to be recognized as champions even though 13 years have passed. Former striker Daniele Massaro expressed his frustration to the press:

- (Gideon) This is impossible. It's clearly cheating in sports. I was really shocked when I heard this news. If the use of drugs is justified then people have to take their Cup and give it back to Milan.

The investigation also reached a dead end. The Champions League championship that year did not belong to any one team.

The sad ending of the Kings of Marseille

What goes around, will come around. It is believed that Marseille's 1993 match-fixing scandal is what has caused the Velodrome home team to struggle ever since. Marseille has had only one national championship in a quarter of a century. The only European championship that Marseille had was the Intertoto Cup in 2005.

However, Marseille's Champions League victory is still something that so far no team in Ligue 1 has been able to replicate. Indeed, this is disappointing for French football. The country has won the World Cup twice in 1998 and 2018. Ligue 1 is one of the top five national championships in Europe. PSG has a huge investment from the owner from the Middle East, but the mark they left on the most prestigious European playground at club level is just the championship that has been stained by tricks. outside the field.

Olympique Marseille that year was truly an incredible team. They did their best to win against the team that was said to be the strongest in the world at that time. However, everything was ruined by the people at the top of the team.
To this day, the 1993 championship is still remembered with different emotions of joy and sadness by this club's fans. Happy because they are the only French team to win the European Championship, but sad because it is a dark stain that will follow the Port city team forever.