Every major ball sport has a few rough edges and the soccer ball sport is no exception. With soccer being the biggest sport shared worldwide, there are bound to be a few odd incidents and interesting happenings here and there. Here is a list of obscure soccer ball facts you probably didn’t know about your favorite sport:
Luigi Riva, the all-time leading scorer for the Italian national team, once broke the arm of a spectator with one of his powerful soccer ball shots.
In 1950, India dropped out of the World Cup because the FIFA would not let their team play barefoot.
In 1937, the first televised soccer ball game was a UK broadcast covering an Arsenal Team practice match.
In the UK, during the 1995 season, a Manchester City fan was banned from attendance due to his habit of celebrating City soccer ball goals by swinging dead chickens around his head.
Kuwait qualified for their first FIFA World Cup match in 1982.
Uruguay won the first FIFA World Cup in 1930.
In 1957, a Salisbury, Rhodesia soccer team paid £10 (about $20) to hire a witch doctor to improve their performance. Salisbury had lost every match the previous year and was obviously looking to purchase some mojo.
In 1954, the Germans were the first European team to win the FIFA World Cup.
Edson Arantes do Nascimento, AKA “Pele”, scored over 1,200 soccer ball goals during his career before retiring in 1977.
A Tanzanian soccer referee was arrested for smoking marijuana prior to kick-off at a 1978 match in his country.
In 1998, Romanian midfielder Ion Radu was sold to a rival team for one-ton (500kg) of pork meat. (really!)
In 1993, 20 red cards (player expulsions) were shown during one soccer ball game in Paraguay.
The Cote D’Ivoire team went unbeaten in their league for 108 games from ’89 to ’94 even though they represented one of the poorest countries in the world.
European Teams have reached the final of every World Cup except in 1930 and 1950.
In 1990, the entire Albanian national soccer team was thrown out of England after landing at Heathrow Airport and helping themselves to a shop-lifting spree. That’s as far as they got.
In 1980, the Liberian soccer team escaped imprisonment by holding opponent Gambia to a goal-less tie. The team had been threatened by their own government with jail if they lost.
Arthur Wharton was the first black professional soccer ball player. He played for the English League team Rotherham United way back in 1889.
World Cup soccer ball matches are the most watched televised sport in history with viewership over a billion. In comparison, the U.S. Super Bowl reaches an audience of just over a million.
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