Another letter, another official. Byron Moreno, an Ecuadorian referee who had a massive impact on the course of the 2002 World Cup and was later convicted as a drug trafficker.
It’s a mad story of his life after football, but for his impact on the World Cup we need to head back to South Korea and Japan, the co-hosts of the 2002 World Cup. Both countries had managed to qualify out of their groups, but Japan had lost to Turkey in the Round of 16. Later the same day, South Korea would face World Cup heavyweights Italy in Daejon.
During the match Moreno missed a few glaringly obvious fouls on Italian players and then awarded a soft penalty to the hosts. Once in extra time, Totti was sent off for diving and a second yellow card, when it was clear he had been fouled in the area. Tommasi was then wrongly flagged as offside as he rounded the keeper to score what would have been a golden goal winner for the Italians. Just three minutes from the end of extra time, Ahn Jung-Hwan (who was playing for Italian club Perugia at the time) scored a header to send the South Koreans into the quarter finals and the Italians back home.
The Italian public was convinced in Byron Moreno’s incompetence at best, and shadowy accusations of deliberate poor refereeing at worst. The federation also claimed that the refereeing performance was evidence that at least one of the co-hosts were meant to go through to the latter stages, after Japan had lost earlier in the day.
A year after the 2002 World Cup, controversy followed the referee domestically, and he was suspended for 20 matches after complaints from two Ecuadorian teams after he added 11 minutes of stoppage time without recording the reasons why. He retired at the age of 36, a joke figure at home and abroad.
South Korea would go on to have a similarly controversial win over Spain in the quarter finals, eventually finishing 4th.
Jump to September 2010 and Moreno is stopped by Customs officials at Kennedy Airport in New York, six kilograms of heroin strapped to his body. He is arrested and charged with drug-smuggling. The Italian press and even former players who played in the infamous World Cup match are quick to give their thoughts. Gianluigi Buffon, one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time says “Six kilos of drugs? I believe Moreno already had them in 2002, but not in his underwear – in his system.” We know he's good for a quote though with what he's also said about English referee Michael Oliver having a bin instead of a heart!
Moreno would spend 26 months in a federal prison in the USA.
Italy have still not forgotten or forgiven, even if they went on to win the next World Cup in 2006. These days there isn’t a lot that Italy can talk about when the World Cup is on other than past glories and injustices. Because this is the 3rd World Cup in a row that they haven’t qualified for, and the previous two they did they were knocked out in the Group stage.
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