On This Day In 1991: The Lights Go Out On Marseille

On This Day In 1991: The Lights Go Out On Marseille
06:11, 20 Mar 2018

The 1980s wasn’t a great time for European football and the start of a new dawn ushered in by Italia 90 saw many live in hope the next decade would prove a golden age for the beautiful game.

In many ways it was but on the back of a series of tragedies and controversies such as the Heysel Stadium disaster and the subsequent ban on British teams competing in Europe, there was a renewed hope that football would once again be the talking point.

The 1990-91 European Cup was the start of this journey and although Liverpool were banned still, the competition featured an array of exciting teams including AC Milan, Napoli, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

One team at the peak of their powers (though never far from controversy of one kind or another) were French champions Marseille.

A side featuring the swashbuckling mullet-haired Chris Waddle, diminutive goal-getter Jean Pierre Papin and the talismanic playmaker Abedi Pele were a force to be reckoned with.

Having lost in the semi-finals the previous year to Benfica under Franz Beckenbauer’s leadership, Marseille were the dominant force in French football on a run of three successive domestic title wins.

After easing past Albania’s Dinamo Tirana and Poland’s Lech Poznan in the first and second rounds respectively, Marseille drew Serie A giants Milan in the quarterfinals.

Beckenbauer had been replaced by Raymond Goethals in January and faced Arrigo Sacchi’s infamous Milan side boasting Maldini, Ancelotti, Baresi, Rijkaard and Gullit.

In the first leg, Marseille managed an excellent 1-1 draw in the San Siro with Papin canceling out Gullit’s early strike.

The scene was set on a balmy evening in southern France where the partisan crowd did their best to make it difficult for their illustrious visitors and the players did not help either.

Swedish referee Bo Karlsson dished out five yellow cards (almost unprecedented in the early 90s) in an ill-tempered game which proved there was very little between the teams.

But in the 72nd minute Pele crossed, but all too high for Papin who just about managed to flick it on across the 18-yard line. The move saw Mauro Tassotti pulled towards Papin, leaving England’s Chris Waddle free to volley first time past Rossi in the Milan net.

Marseille were hanging on and in the second minute of stoppage time all hell broke loose when the floodlights mysteriously failed.

Referee Karlsson took the players off the pitch amid the chaos expecting to bring them back on to the field shortly after when the floodlights would be restored to power.

However, it took more than 15 minutes to turn them back on and in an incredible turn of events, Milan president director Adriano Galliani refused to put his team back on the pitch, claiming it was the work of TV crews acting on the French club’s behalf.

Despite many believing it was a ploy to force a replay it turned out to be a bad move for Milan as declared it a forfeit, awarding a 3-0 victory to Marseille.

UEFA also banned Milan from European competition for one year and also suspended Galliani from all official functions until July 1993.

Sadly for Waddle and Marseille it was not to be as they fell on penalties to Red Star Belgrade in the final before the l'affaire VA-OM match-fixing scandal led to them being relegated, stripped of their league title and being banned from European competition.

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