Football
High
Barcelona's incredible season was rounded off with an emphatic treble as the Catalans became the first club in the history of the football to win the treble twice. Barcelona did not enjoy a great start to the 2014-15 season as they were playing catch up to their hatred rival Real Madrid. At the start of 2015, Barca was four points behind los Blancos. But things improved after the turn of the year and the 2-1 win over Real Madrid in March, virtually sealed the liga title and they had little trouble in seeing out the rest of the opponents to secure the title at Atletico Madrid with a 1-0 victory. Their dominance in Europe was even more emphatic as the Blaugrana lost only one of the seven knockout matches in the Champions league. The sole defeat came against Bayern Munich 3-2 in the second leg of semifinals. But, the result mattered little as Barca earned their passage already with a 3-0 victory in the first leg. In the title clash against Italian Champions Juventus, Barcelona dominated the match except for a small period in the second half to win the match 3-1. Braca started the Spanish league in 2015-16 the same way and demolished Real Madrid 4-0 in November. They also won the Club World Cup with ease as they beat River Plate 3-0 in the final.
Corruption in, football out
low
Footballing world was rocked by the corruption scandal which resulted in numerous officials being indicted, including the presidents of FIFA and UEFA being banned. The US federal prosecutors disclosed several cases of corruption mostly revolved around the CONMEBOl, CONCACAF and sports marketing executives over media and marketing rights for high-profile international competitions. As part of it, a sudden raid was conducted in a Zurich hotel ahead of 65th FIFA congress in May. During which fourteen people were indicted by the United States FBI over wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering. Notably CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb was also arrested.
Then Sepp Blatter announced his retirement just four days after being elected as the FIFA president. Soon after criminal proceedings was opened against Blatter over a 2 million Swiss Francs payment made to Michel Platini in 2011 for work carried out between 1999 and 2002.
Blatter and Platini were banned for eight years by the Ethics Board.
later, German police searched the headquarters of the German Football Association over allegations of illegal deals before 2006 World Cup in relation to yet another bribery allegation.