These famous curses in football will shock you

These five cases might make you think football curses are not just mere myths.

Black Stars of Ghana

The Black Stars have been struggling to win the African Cup of Nations since winning it in 1982 in Libya. Most soccer connoisseurs, ex-footballers and fans believe the nation’s failure to honour the heroes in the four previous AFCONS has attributed to this situation.

Ghana have played in three different finals after winning the 1982 continental showpiece in Libya. They lost in a marathon shootout against Ivory Coast in 1992, fell narrowly to Egypt in 2010 and again succumbed to their Ivorian counterparts in 2015 in yet another penalty shootout.

Most of the former Black Stars players have disclosed that the nation is paying the price for neglecting the members of previous winning teams who played their hearts out to secure glory and fame for the nation.

The 1978 AFCON winning team of Ghana were promised an estate house each by the head of state at the time, General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, but it wasn’t fulfilled due to a military coup that toppled his government.

The 1963 and the 1965 winning teams are also bitter that they were not honoured by the state, highlighting the fact that some key players of those sides have since gone on to die in poverty, unappreciated.

In a latest revelation, George Alhassan - a member of the 1978 and 1982 Afcon winning teams - claims that the 1982 squad invoked curses on the nation due to the ill-treatment meted out to them by the head of state Flt Lt. Jerry John Rawlings - who gave them just a salute as the reward for winning the trophy in Libya.

He said the bitterness that compelled them to curse the nation might still be having a negative effect on the Black Stars and that might have attributed to the 35-year trophy drought.

The Ghana government under former President John Dramani Mahama in an attempt to pacify the aggrieved Black Stars legends behind the title-winning efforts gave them a cash reward for their contributions.

The players and technical team of those sides or their representatives pocketed a cool GH¢17,894 each for their efforts.

Interestingly, following this settlement, Ghana came very close to winning the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, dominating Ivory Coast in the final yet agonizingly losing the penalty shootouts.

The big puzzle remains: Are the Black Stars suffering from a curse? If they are, why couldn’t the reward by the state help overturn it? Or that was still not good enough?

Derby County

Legend has it that when Derby County built their stadium in 1895, they had to move a band of gypsies from the area for construction to take place. The gypsies, expectedly embittered by their forced migration, invoking a curse on the team: Derby would never win the FA Cup (one of the most prestigious cups in club football) they said.

At first, the gloomy declaration attracted ridicule, but as time went on, people realized it wasn’t funny anymore. From then on, Derby went 51 years and three unsuccessful finals before finally breaking the ‘curse’ by winning the trophy in 1946.

In that final, against Charlton Athletic, a team representative reportedly went to the gypsie clan and pleaded for the ‘curse’ to lifted.

Derby ended up winning the match 4-1, and a bizarre incident of the ball bursting at some point during the match made people speculate that there were supernatural forces backing Derby’s charge towards the trophy.

Australia

Ahead of the World Cup in Mexico (1970), Australia were bent on making it. So obsessed they were, the story goes, that that they consulted a festish priest to cast spells on their opponents during the qualifiers. After helping the Socceroos to a victory over Rhodesia, the priest demanded payment for his services, but was snubbed. He later cursed the team, and many believe it resulted in their inability to eventually qualify for the tournament in Mexico.

The Aussies thought they had beaten this alleged curse by making it to the next World Cup, Germany 1974, but after a first round exit that saw them fail to score a single goal, they went 32 years without World Cup action.

A curious and concerned documentary film maker reportedly travelled to Africa years later and paid a witch doctor to have the curse revoked.

Strangely, Australia went on to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, reaching the knockout phase.

Benfica

Celebrated yet controversial Hungarian coach Bela Guttman had just led Benfica to back-to-back European Cup victories (1961 and 1962), making the Portuguese club one of Europe’s biggest teams, so he naturally, he asked for a pay rise as his stock had understandably gone up.

Strangely, the club’s management turned him down.

He flipped out and left the club, but not without a curse, saying: “Not in a hundred years from now will Benfica ever be European champion."

He meant it.

Since then, Benfica has lost to AC Milan (twice), Inter Milan, Manchester United and PSV Eindhoven in a European Cup final, as well as Anderlecht, Chelsea and Sevilla in Europa League (UEFA Cup) finals.

Racing Club

It has been reported that fans of Argentinian side Independiente buried seven cats at the home ground of their arch rivals Racing Club in a bid to inflict upon them durable bad luck.

Apparently, the fans plotted and took advantage of Racing’s trip to Montevideo for the 1967 Intercontinental Cup final against Celtic to execute the ritual.

Weirdly, after winning that Intercontinental Cup, Racing Club went 34 years without a trophy.