Messi, Maradona, Chelsea: The biggest robberies in football history | OneFootball

What is the biggest robbery in football history?

Ask most football fans and they will say there’s a robbery against their own side almost every week.

Such is our blind passion and bias towards our own club, we often believe every decision that goes against our side is wrong.

But one Twitter thread is asking fans to widen that out a little and think about the biggest robberies in the history of the game.

We’re not talking about a throw-in being given the wrong way or an undeserved yellow card. We’re talking about scandals.

We’ve trawled through some of the popular answers to the thread and compiled them in a list below:

Robin van Persie’s red card vs Barcelona

Van Persie was shown a second yellow card at the Camp Nou for having a shot about a millisecond after the referee blew the whistle for offside. Arsenal were 3-2 ahead on aggregate at the time before they crashed out with 10 men.

Lionel Messi’s lack of Ballon d’Ors since 2013

Does the Argentine deserve to have won Ballons d’Or than the seven he’s already got?

Thierry Henry’s handball vs Ireland

In a World Cup qualifier, Henry’s handball saw France triumph over Ireland and the Irish haven’t forgotten about it.

Harry Maguire for £80m

You won’t be shocked to hear there were quite a few shouts for this one…

Italy vs South Korea at the 2002 World Cup

Italy really were robbed against South Korea in the quarter finals of the 2002 World Cup, weren’t they?

Diego Maradona’s handball against England

Of course, this had to be mentioned.

Frank Lampard’s ‘goal’ vs Germany in 2010 World Cup

Another heartbreaking England moment…

The game that ended Arsenal’s unbeaten run vs Man Utd

Arsenal’s 49-game unbeaten run came to an end after a 2-0 loss to Manchester United. But how did United not get at least one man sent off that day? Not to mention Wayne Rooney’s dive for the penalty…

Chelsea vs Barcelona in 2009

“IT’S A DISGRACE!” screamed Didier Drogba. Yeah, we agree. It was.

Sheffield United’s ‘non-goal’ that kept Aston Villa up

It’s even worse when you consider that we had goal-line technology – it just failed to work. Villa survived by one point ahead of Bournemouth and Watford.

Luis Suarez’s handball vs Ghana in the 2010 World Cup

Suarez denied Ghana a place in the World Cup semi finals with a handball on the goal-line in the last minute of extra-time. Suarez was sent off, Ghana missed the penalty before Uruguay went on to win in the shootout. Now that’s a robbery.

That’s 11 shocking examples of robbery in football. But what, in your opinion, is the biggest robbery the sport has ever seen?