10 Biggest FIFA World Cup Controversies

Back in 1962, Football had a very different reputation than what fans of the sport might expect these days. Still very much seen as a game for gentlemen that was based around decency and respect, things began taking things for the shocking following the 'Battle of Santiago' between Chile and Italy in that year's World Cup.

With the event being hosted in Chile for the very first time, tensions between the two sides began mounting when some of the visiting Italian journalists described Santiago as being rife with "malnutrition, illiteracy, alcoholism and poverty." The reporters were eventually hounded out of the country and beaten up after being discovered in an Argentine bar across the border.

Everyone was bracing for a 'bloodbath' when the sides kicked off at 3pm on the 2nd of June, and spectators only had to wait 12 seconds for the match's first foul. English referee Kenneth Aston (who would go onto invent yellow and red cards after having to officiate this game without them) might have expelled two players off the pitch, with the first coming after just eight minutes, but he was utterly powerless to stop all of the kicking, spitting, swearing and punching going on during the game.

Humbert Maschio suffered a broken nose, police were called onto the pitch three times and the BBC reporter, David Coleman, later introduced the match as being: "the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game."