8 Football Teams Who Were Stripped Of Their League Titles

For the 1992-93 season, Europe's premiere club competition got an upgrade when rebranded as "The Champions League" and France's Olympique de Marseille were among the favourites to be its first winners.

Marseille had won the past four French titles and looked set to add a fifth as the season drew to a close. With the Champions League Final against AC Milan on the horizon, however, Marseille did not need the distraction of a league game against struggling Valenciennes.

That was when controversial Marseille president Bernard Tapie arranged to offer a 250,000 franc bribe each to Valenciennes players Christophe Robert, Jorge Burrachaga and Jacques Glassman to go easy on Marseille, letting them win the game and, crucially, not injuring any of their players before the Champions League match.

Valenciennes duly lost the game, but Glassman, who had turned the bribe down, reported the bribery to the referee.

The victory secured Marseille the league and, less than a week later, they beat Milan to become the first, and only, French team to be crowned European champions.

The French Football Federation soon struck back against Marseille's match fixing, revoking their title and relegating them to the second tier. Runners up Paris St-Germain refused the title and its accompanying Champions League spot (their owners Canal+ were worried about losing TV revenue in the Marseille region), so the league went without a winner.

Oddly, however, Marseille were allowed to keep their European title, despite later revelations suggesting they may have tried to fix further matches in the competition and engaged in player doping.