Villains Of The Year

It’s pantomime season and before anyone makes that traditional response, we’ve decided to compile a sport version of the villains of the year. There’s been an unprecedented amount of bad boys in the profession over the past 12 months but who were the most sinister out of the bunch?

Honourable Mentions – The Jabulani Ball (notorious proponent of crazy goals at the World Cup), Audley Harrison (wasting money and time of boxing fans) and the PGA (for ruling Dustin Johnson grounded his club in a bunker, when it wasn’t obvious to be a bunker)

The Villains of Sport in 2010

Wayne Rooney

Not exactly been the best year for the boy wonder. Newspaper allegations aside and sticking to sport, he began the year in scintillating form for Manchester United. The World Cup quickly changed that as he looked jaded, tired and uninterested. Memorably after the Algeria game, he questioned the loyalty of the England supporters who trekked thousands of miles to boo.

Then Wayne made huge demands to Manchester United about his contract and the ambitions of the club. Cue long drawn out saga about Rooney’s future and more newspaper stories. By December Rooney seems to be slowly regaining some respect with the United fans but many will argue his antics will never be forgiven in the Stretford End.

Mohammed Amir and Mohammed Asif

England’s summer test series descended quickly into farce. They demolished the tourists convincingly at Lords, but it was three no-balls in particular that brought the sport into disrepute.

Mohammed Amir and Mohammed Asif appeared to deliberately bowl no-balls in return for payment as part of a betting syndicate. The ICC banned the two, plus Salman Butt for their part in the scandal and once again Pakistan had made the cricketing headlines for all the wrong reasons.

FIFA

The end of the year saw FIFA announce the host of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, but also facing allegations from the English media of bribery and just all-round general foul play.

Sour grapes? Not really, England theoretically had the best bid on the table but didn’t do enough to garner favour with FIFA delegates.

The lack of a legacy within the bid, which Sepp Blatter put down as the most important part of the bidding process, combined with the fact Russia’s bid was quite good as well, meant the 2018 World Cup went to Russia.

Qatar however….

Mike Ashley

Just when you thought Newcastle’s chairman had changed his ways, he decided to fire Chris Hughton, despite him making a good stab of his first tenure in the Premier League.

Hughton had some impressive results, such as beating Aston Villa 6-0 and thrashing rivals Sunderland 5-1. But his time was up as Ashley and the board claimed they wanted someone with more experience.

Alan Pardew was unveiled. The Geordie faithful weren’t exactly happy. Ashley’s late surge propels him up the rankings. A leopard never changes its spots, or in this case, stripes.

Still, Pardew’s opening win against Liverpool helped the club at the end of a terrible week.

Ferrari

It seemed easy to select Fernando Alonso here, but why not nominate his team instead. The Ferrari F1 team’s decisions in the German Grand Prix brought the whole team orders debate back to the floor.

Felipe Massa led the Hockenheim race on Lap 49, but pulled aside to let his team-mate Fernando Alonso win the race. It’s not exactly a new thing to let a team-mate win but it was Ferrari’s lack of elusiveness that stunned the public.

Race engineer Rob Smedley said to Massa over the team radio: “Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?” Cries of foul play went around the paddock and the race stewards investigated.

Ferrari were fined $100,000 but weren’t charged further in a later enquiry. Luckily they didn’t win the title either.

Raymond Domenech

It takes some doing to be hated by the entire population of France but Domenech managed to do it with relative ease.

His position going in to the tournament was fairly untenable, after scraping through the playoffs thanks to Monsieur Henry but no one could imagine the implosion that would happen when it came to the World Cup.

Nicolas Anelka fell out with him sharpish and was sent packing. Then Patrice Evra and fitness coach Robert Duverne had to be pulled apart on the training ground. On the pitch, things went just as badly as France were eliminated in the groups.

National scandal yet global laughing stock. He could be a hero depending on your allegiance. Domenech now does adverts for poker. Go figure.

Luis Suarez

Suarez could almost certainly do a one man play of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. On the one hand, the Uruguayan striker has been in prolific form notching up an unbelievable 35 league goals in 09/10 for his club Ajax.

Then the World Cup happened, where Suarez became global public enemy No’s 1, 2 and 3 in the space of five seconds. Ghana were the last African side left in the World Cup on that continent and looked set to book their place in the semi-finals.

But in the last minute, devious Suarez handballed a certain goal on the line. He went to ground trying to pick up any sympathy from the referee, but he wasn’t buying it.

Off Suarez went. Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan had the chance to level from the spot but hit the bar. The camera cuts to Suarez running around jubilantly. Not the best move.

Sure we’d probably have done the same but it was such a cruel blow to Ghana, after they lost on penalties and it re-opened the ethics debate within football.

Not to be outdone, Suarez courted controversy again recently when he bit an opponent on the neck during a game. Suarez doesn’t seem to have a vampire complex and was consequently banned for 7 games. He won’t stay out of trouble will he?

Mauricio Espinosa and Jorge Larrionda

Not to target Uruguay here, but it’s fairly certain that these two jokers justify their place on the list. Larrionda was the referee in the England vs. Germany match at the World Cup and I don’t think you need me to tell you why they are on here.

With England 2-1 down, and starting to improve, Frank Lampard’s shot hit the underside of the bar and went clearly over the line. The ground knew it, the commentators did and everyone in the pub saw it. But the Uruguayan duo missed it and allowed play to continue.

Would it have changed England’s fortunes at the World Cup? Probably not, but the whole incident brought the goal-line technology debate to the floor again. That alone is enough for them to make selection here.

FemaleFirst Chris Mayer

It’s pantomime season and before anyone makes that traditional response, we’ve decided to compile a sport version of the villains of the year. There’s been an unprecedented amount of bad boys in the profession over the past 12 months but who were the most sinister out of the bunch?

Honourable Mentions – The Jabulani Ball (notorious proponent of crazy goals at the World Cup), Audley Harrison (wasting money and time of boxing fans) and the PGA (for ruling Dustin Johnson grounded his club in a bunker, when it wasn’t obvious to be a bunker)

The Villains of Sport in 2010

Wayne Rooney

Not exactly been the best year for the boy wonder. Newspaper allegations aside and sticking to sport, he began the year in scintillating form for Manchester United. The World Cup quickly changed that as he looked jaded, tired and uninterested. Memorably after the Algeria game, he questioned the loyalty of the England supporters who trekked thousands of miles to boo.

Then Wayne made huge demands to Manchester United about his contract and the ambitions of the club. Cue long drawn out saga about Rooney’s future and more newspaper stories. By December Rooney seems to be slowly regaining some respect with the United fans but many will argue his antics will never be forgiven in the Stretford End.

Mohammed Amir and Mohammed Asif

England’s summer test series descended quickly into farce. They demolished the tourists convincingly at Lords, but it was three no-balls in particular that brought the sport into disrepute.

Mohammed Amir and Mohammed Asif appeared to deliberately bowl no-balls in return for payment as part of a betting syndicate. The ICC banned the two, plus Salman Butt for their part in the scandal and once again Pakistan had made the cricketing headlines for all the wrong reasons.

FIFA

The end of the year saw FIFA announce the host of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, but also facing allegations from the English media of bribery and just all-round general foul play.

Sour grapes? Not really, England theoretically had the best bid on the table but didn’t do enough to garner favour with FIFA delegates.

The lack of a legacy within the bid, which Sepp Blatter put down as the most important part of the bidding process, combined with the fact Russia’s bid was quite good as well, meant the 2018 World Cup went to Russia.

Qatar however….

Mike Ashley

Just when you thought Newcastle’s chairman had changed his ways, he decided to fire Chris Hughton, despite him making a good stab of his first tenure in the Premier League.

Hughton had some impressive results, such as beating Aston Villa 6-0 and thrashing rivals Sunderland 5-1. But his time was up as Ashley and the board claimed they wanted someone with more experience.

Alan Pardew was unveiled. The Geordie faithful weren’t exactly happy. Ashley’s late surge propels him up the rankings. A leopard never changes its spots, or in this case, stripes.

Still, Pardew’s opening win against Liverpool helped the club at the end of a terrible week.

Ferrari

It seemed easy to select Fernando Alonso here, but why not nominate his team instead. The Ferrari F1 team’s decisions in the German Grand Prix brought the whole team orders debate back to the floor.

Felipe Massa led the Hockenheim race on Lap 49, but pulled aside to let his team-mate Fernando Alonso win the race. It’s not exactly a new thing to let a team-mate win but it was Ferrari’s lack of elusiveness that stunned the public.

Race engineer Rob Smedley said to Massa over the team radio: “Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?” Cries of foul play went around the paddock and the race stewards investigated.

Ferrari were fined $100,000 but weren’t charged further in a later enquiry. Luckily they didn’t win the title either.

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