Marseille 1993: the night in Munich and the VA-OM affair

In the early 1990s, Olympique de Marseille dominated French football. Under the presidency of businessman Bernard Tapie, the club had assembled a top-class squad. In the 1992-93 season they were chasing a fifth consecutive league title and, above all, the European Cup, which that season introduced its group stage under the name Champions League.

The team coached by Belgian Raymond Goethals had stars from several generations. In goal was Fabien Barthez. In defence, Marcel Desailly and Basile Boli. Didier Deschamps organised the midfield, Abedi Pelé supplied the creativity and up front were Alen Bokšić and Rudi Völler.

In the early rounds, Marseille knocked out Northern Ireland's Glentoran 8-0 on aggregate and Dinamo Bucharest 2-0. They were then drawn in a group with Scotland's Rangers, Belgium's Club Brugge and CSKA Moscow. They finished unbeaten, with three wins and three draws. They thrashed CSKA 6-0 in Marseille and drew both their games with Rangers, their great rivals in the race for first place. The group was decided on the final matchday: Marseille won 1-0 in Bruges, Rangers drew with CSKA and the French side reached the final by a single point.

Standing in their way was Fabio Capello's Milan, one of the most powerful teams of the era. Their squad included Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini, Frank Rijkaard and Marco van Basten, and they had won every one of their group-stage matches. On their bench, too, was Jean-Pierre Papin, Marseille's goalscorer only a few years earlier, who came on in the second half of the final.

The final was played on May 26, 1993 at Munich's Olympic Stadium, in front of some 64,000 spectators. The referee was Switzerland's Kurt Röthlisberger. It was a tight, cagey match. Shortly before half-time, Abedi Pelé swung in a corner and Basile Boli headed it in. That goal was enough. Marseille won 1-0 and became the first French club to win the European Cup. No club from France had ever done it before.

The celebrations, however, were short-lived. Six days before the final, on May 20, 1993, Marseille had played a league match against Valenciennes. They won 1-0. Soon afterwards it emerged that Marseille midfielder Jean-Jacques Eydelie had offered money to three Valenciennes players, Jacques Glassmann, Jorge Burruchaga and Christophe Robert, to take it easy in that match. Glassmann turned down the offer and reported it. The case went down in history as the VA-OM affair.

The investigation reached the top of the club, including general manager Jean-Pierre Bernès and president Bernard Tapie. The sporting sanctions were severe. The French federation stripped Marseille of the 1992-93 league title, which was left without a champion because Paris Saint-Germain, second in the table, refused to accept it. UEFA banned the club from the 1993-94 Champions League. Shortly afterwards, the club was relegated to the second division. In the courts, several of those involved were convicted, and Tapie was sentenced to prison.

The European Cup, on the other hand, was not taken away. The bribe concerned a French league match, not the European competition. That is why the 1993 title is still credited to Olympique de Marseille.

More than thirty years on, that night in Munich remains one of the most cherished memories for Marseille fans. It is also a story of contrasts: the club's greatest glory and, almost at the same time, its hardest fall.