10 Biggest Premier League Controversies
6. The Battle Of The Buffet
The Background:
It is October 2004 and Arsène Wenger's invincible Arsenal side are defending champions, top of the league and unbeaten in a record-breaking 49 games. A win at Manchester United's Old Trafford will make it 50.
The previous encounter between the two teams had been characterised by bad blood between United's star striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy and several Arsenal players, with Van Nistelrooy missing a late penalty before clashing with Arsenal's Martin Keown.
The Controversy:
After a scrappy start to the game with several yellow cards shown, Van Nistelrooy dives in for a studs-raised lunge on Arsenal's Ashley Cole. It's a clear sending off offence but the Dutch striker escapes without punishment. Later, with the score still at 0-0, Wayne Rooney goes down in the box with minimal contact from Arsenal defender Sol Campbell. Van Nistelrooy, whose opponents are incensed that he's even still on the pitch, steps up and this time scores the resulting penalty.
The game ends with Arsenal finally defeated and the customary handshakes and shirt-swapping replaced by a major quarrel that continues into the tunnel. Wenger confronts Van Nistelrooy and soon there is a major row between both teams. At the height of the argument United boss Alex Ferguson is struck by a flying pizza thrown by a mystery Arsenal player.
The Aftermath:
Van Nistelrooy is charged with serious foul play and retroactively handed a three-match ban by the FA. The damage is already done, though, both to Arsenal's invincible reputation and to Wenger and Ferguson's relationship with Ferguson calling Wenger "a disgrace".
Arsenal slip from the top of the league. They have not won a league title since.
The return match at Highbury in February 2005 is equally testy with a scrap breaking out in the tunnel before kick off between captains Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane.
In 2017, thirteen years after the incident, Cesc Fàbregas (then a teenage prodigy and unused substitute, now a much-decorated World Cup winning star) admits that it was him that threw the pizza.