The Most Pathetic Abuses of Power in Sports History

One of the most crushing disappointments of childhood, right up there with the truth about Santa Claus is the realization that you probably don't have what it takes to be a professional athlete. Personally i was one of the highest goal scorers in the history of under bridge football, there was even a time i went ahead to score a fantastic header from my own cross.lol 

The door on that career path closes early and never opens again, unless, of course, you grow up to be disgustingly rich and powerful.

Because professional sports have never shied from choosing money over dignity, it's entirely possible to grease your awkward slide into professional athletics with billions of naira ...

Sportunes is here to take you back memory lane on all the people that forcefully came to our sports, saw our sports and destroyed our sports.


 Al-Saadi Gaddafi Forced His Way into Professional Soccer, Spoils Soccer for Everyone

                    

Before Muammar Gaddafi's son Al-Saadi became commander of Lybia's Special Forces and a high-profile target for Interpol, he was following his real dream of kicking a ball around and throwing himself on the ground to draw penalties. He loved soccer but unfortunately lacked any skill, even by Saturday pick-up game standards. However, when your father is good at killing arguments by killing the arguers, you can do pretty much anything you want.

That's how Al-Saadi wound up playing for a team in the Libyan League while simultaneously acting as president of the entire Libyan Football Federation. As you can probably imagine, that created a fairly substantial conflict of interest, which Al-Saadi was ready to exploit unapologetically. He rigged the league in his own favor, forcing the best players to join his team while bribing all of the referees.

                            
                   
Once, when a rival team refused to finish a game against his team in protest of all the unfair calls and dirty play, Gaddafi's soldiers forced them to keep playing at gunpoint. Finally, to add insult to injury after the game, Al-Saadi had their clubhouse bulldozed. In his ultimate act of arrogance, Al-Saadi created a league-wide rule forbidding announcers to mention the name of any player other than Al-Saadi himself. When everyone else is afraid of you, you don't even have to pretend to play fair.

But that wasn't enough for Al-Saadi. He wanted to play for a legitimate team in a legitimate league. So he did what plucky underdogs everywhere have always done: He threw his daddy's oil money at the problem until it went away. In 2003 the soccer world was shocked to hear that Al-Saadi had secured a move to the big leagues with the Series A Italian team Perugia. He managed it by bypassing the league altogether and brokering the deal with the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, instead. He employed  Diego Maradona as his technical consultant and Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson as his personal trainer.

                               

Of course Perugia claimed that no money changed hands and they merely signed him to improve relations between Italy and Libya. Regardless of why it happened, no one felt confident enough at lying to pretend they had hired him for his skill.

Despite the team's owner openly pleading with the coach to play him, Gaddafi only appeared for 26 minutes in three seasons in Italy. The problem was eventually solved when he failed a drug test and was banned altogether. He ended up being voted the league's worst ever player, which might actually have pleased his father, who once opened a major soccer tournament with the inspirational words, "All you stupid spectators, have your stupid game."