Power of Caring
  presented by Cigna

Posted: Thu September 25, 1997 at 9:15 PM ET

The Anderlecht Football Club, 24-time winner of the Belgian soccer championship, is a team in disgrace.

Revelations of a bribery scandal 13 years ago have returned to haunt the Belgians and hound them out of European competition.

UEFA, soccer's European governing body, has banned the Belgian aristocrats for one season the next time they qualify for European action.

That's a vast improvement on UEFA's initial reaction to news that Anderlecht had allegedly given money to the referee of its 1984 UEFA Cup semifinal, second-leg match against English side Nottingham Forest.

UEFA had insisted it could no longer take action because of a rule that prevented it from investigating an episode that happened more than 10 years ago. Basically, UEFA officials were able to hide behind this convenient rule and wash their hands of an incident which, admittedly, was still somewhat shrouded in rumor and conjecture.

But when the allegations surfaced in court recently, Anderlecht was forced to admit that it had indeed handed over cash to the Spanish referee after Anderlecht's 3-0 semifinal victory. That result overturned a first- leg 2-0 defeat in Nottingham, putting Anderlecht through to the lucrative final against another English club, Tottenham Hotspur.

However, Anderlecht did not admit the money -- one million Belgian francs ($27,000) -- was a bribe, calling it instead a loan to Spanish referee Guruceta Muro, who died in a car crash in 1987.

Muro's handling of the match was strongly criticized at the time by Nottingham Forest, who had what looked like a perfectly legitimate goal disallowed and conceded a penalty that replays showed was a most blatant dive by an Anderlecht player.

When the story of potential bribery surfaced, Forest was outraged and immediately set about gaining some compensation for being cheated out of one of European football's showpiece events. Some of their former players, like Steve Hodge and Garry Birtles, could sue for lost earnings.

In 1984, Anderlecht was headed by the father of Roger Vanden Stock, the current chairman. When the UEFA about-turn came and the ban was announced, he claimed it was a pity the current players and directors had to pay for something the club did 13 years ago.

I disagree. If a murderer is discovered 13 years after he killed, should we say it's a pity for him for to be caught and jailed just because he's since built another life for himself? That's nonsense.

No, Anderlecht should be hit hard. A one-year ban will cost the team 250 million francs ($7 million) in lost gate and advertising revenues and ruin the team's proud record of having appeared in Europe every year since 1964. But UEFA should take it a step further and, with the help of Belgian authorities, investigate every single player and official involved that fateful night in 1984.

The referee's tragic death ended one possible avenue of investigation. But how about all the former Anderlecht players? What about the forward who dived to get the penalty? Did he know that if he fell in the box after any kind of challenge that a penalty could result? Was the chairman the only man who knew anything about the referee's alleged loan? How corrupt was the club then? What about now? All these questions and more need to be addressed.

UEFA President Lennart Johansson said a bundle of documents pertaining to the case had been sent to him but later disappeared. Why did this only just come to light?

Johansson says he wants a special investigation into UEFA's handling of the case, which is a fair enough start. But that could surely wait. There are other more pressing matters, especially with Belgian lawyer Luc Misson declaring that UEFA's suspension of Anderlecht is illegal and could easily be overturned in court.

Even though Anderlecht now says it will not take legal action against UEFA to be reinstated, more posturing from the likes of Misson (who acted for Jean Marc Bosman in the European Court of Justice case that brought an end to transfer fees for out-of-contract players in European Union countries) could lead to a change of mind.

By doing more probing into the club's activities in the early '80s, UEFA could make a preemptive strike and scare Anderlecht from setting foot anywhere near a courtroom for fear of being further exposed.

Should UEFA find any more dirty dealings, then the book should be thrown at Anderlecht.

Those Forest players and thousands of their fans can never relive the 1984 UEFA Cup semi, nor indeed the final they should have appeared in. Anderlecht robbed them of that joy and satisfaction. They denied Forest players prestige, international recognition and no small amount of cash.

Just because we have moved on 13 years doesn't make the blow any less painful. It actually reopens gaping wounds. Anderlecht, and the people involved in their sorry dealings, need to be made examples of -- UEFA must dig, delve and deliver justice.

Football clubs around the globe need to be told -- through this case -- that cheats will not be the ultimate winners. A one-year ban for Anderlecht should merely be the start.