The 1984 UEFA Cup: The biggest corruption case in European football history?

In 1984, Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest was gearing up for their third European final in six years after defeating Belgian side Anderlecht 2-0 in the first leg of the UEFA Cup semi-final.

Yet what happened in the return leg in Brussels is a stark reminder of how easy it is to match-fix a game of football. Others will have just got away with it.

Forest had already won three of their first four away games in the competition, beating PSV, Celtic, and Vorwarts to reach the semi-final stages. Yet Clough felt incredibly uneasy about the refereeing appointment of Emilio Guruceta Muro, a man with a dubious reputation.

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According to the Guardian, Muro had already developed a poor reputation after sending two Italians off and awarding Standard Liege a controversial penalty against Napoli. Forest player Paul Hart had his concerns about the referee.

"I remember saying to Kenny Swain, I hope it's not the same guy we had when I played for Leeds in a tournament in Spain a couple of years earlier. That referee had sent off two of our players for no reason. Then we were waiting in the tunnel, and there he was – the same guy."

Despite his dubious reputation, Anderlecht still had a mountain to climb against a formidable Nottingham Forest team. Indeed, the referee couldn't swing the outcome that much. However, Nottingham Forest's worst nightmares came true in the second leg.

A pattern of strange decisions played a part in Anderlecht taking the lead in the 20th minute through Enzo Scifo. Forest held on until the hour mark when the Spanish referee ruled that Kenny Swain had brought down Kenneth Brylle to give away a penalty to make it 2-0.

According to the BBC, striker Gary Birtles said: "That penalty was the most embarrassing decision I have ever seen in football." Paul Hart stated: "It was a blatant dive anyway. But I can't stress this enough: Kenny was a mile off him. It could easily have been offside as well."

Erwin Vandenbergh scored Anderlecht's third with two minutes left to put the home side ahead on aggregate, but Forest wasn't finished. After winning a corner, Hart rattled the ball into the goal with his head. The referee disallowed the goal despite Hart having a free header. It is evident that a corrupt referee had done Forest.

Despite the apparent cheating involved in Anderlecht reaching the UEFA Cup final, words of cheating and corruption were kept in the shadows. The Belgian team seemed to get what they deserved, losing on penalties to Tottenham Hotspur in the final after drawing 1-1 in both games.

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It wasn't until 1997 that the decisions made by the referee that night became public when Anderlecht admitted paying the Spanish referee Emilio Guruceta Muro in a criminal case.

It was discovered that evidence of corruption was found in 1992 when convicted criminal Rene Van Aaken blackmailed the club and sent the information regarding the game in 1984 to the Belgian FA.

The evidence showed that Anderlecht president Constant Vanden Stock had approached local criminal Jean Elst shortly before the match to help him bribe the referee. Elst contacted a friend in Alicante, who spoke to the referee.

According to Belgian journalist Frank van Laeken, "The referee said 'Ok, I'll do it for 1.2 million Belgian Francs (£18,000)'". When the facts were finally revealed, UEFA banned Anderlecht from European competition for a year.

The referee could never be convicted after he died in a car crash in 1987 at the age of 45. Criminals Elst and Van Aaken were both given prison time, with Elst dying in prison and Van Aaken's conviction for blackmail being overturned in an appeal.

The Nottingham Forest players tried to sue, taking their case to Charleroi. However, it was "lost in the annals of Belgian law." To this day, the events of April 25, 1984, remain as painful as ever for those Forest players.

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