The Football Tragic

In 1982, Atlante FC in Mexico City became the club home of the top-scorer from the 1974 World Cup, Grzegorz Lato. His opponent in the Poles' first match from that tournament, Ruben Ayala, was already at the club. 

The two foreign recruits naturally struck up a friendship, and one day Ayala innocently asked Lato if he'd appreciated the gift provided by the Argentinians in return for the Poles' crucial win over Italy, which allowed Argentina to progress to the second round. Oh, the $40 and the apples, said Lato. No, the other gift.

What other gift?

The veteran Argentinian then told a story that left Lato shocked. Prior to the game, Ayala had delivered, to an intermediary, a gift of a thousand US dollars per player, to further encourage them to give their all against Italy (it should be remembered that the Poles were safely in the second round whatever happened in that game). Actually, it ended up being a little less than a thousand each, since Ayala had pocketed six thousand himself, "for his trouble". 

The money was delivered by this intermediary to his contact in the Polish team - Robert Gadocha. It was then to be distributed to the players. But Lato and his team-mates never knew about this arrangement. The horrible realization dawned: Gadocha had kept the money himself. All of it.

Lato kept this secret for twenty years. After finishing his playing career, he went into management for a while before entering Polish politics, and by 2004 he was a respected senator. It was then that he gave an interview to a sports magazine, in which he finally revealed the sordid story. Lato was careful not to name the guilty party, but Polish fans and journalists were quick to put two and two together. 

The intermediary was a certain Iggy Bocwinski, born in Argentina of Polish parents, who had gone to work with Pan Am in Poland in the 1960s. A football fanatic, he became familiar with a number of players, notably Gadocha, and was attached to the Polish staff at the 1974 event.

Before the game against Argentina, he had heard from certain Argentinian journalists that, well, an inducement might be on the cards, given the importance of the result. Approaching the Argentine squad, he was initially met with a cold shoulder: they would need some proof of his bona fides, they said. Perhaps a letter of introduction from one of the players? Bocwinski's friend Gadocha duly supplied one.

And so it was, apparently, that the "gift" was handed over by Ayala to Bocwinski, and by Bocwinski to Gadocha. But the winger intimated even then that he had no intention of sharing the spoils. "Don't tell the boys," he told a stunned Bocwinski.

The story was quickly corroborated. In Argentina, a journalist confirmed that it had been an open secret for a long time. And yes, it was known that Lato's mystery man was Gadocha. Even Gadocha's ex-wife got in on the act, stating that she had subsequently received the money.

Gadocha, to this day, denies it. His ex-wife was acting out of spite, Bocwinski was lying...why would he deceive his team-mates in this way? But his team-mates no longer visit him, nor he them. 

Jan Tomaszewski, Poland's eccentric but inspirational keeper, expressed his bitterness in an interview some years later. "I told him I would never shake his hand again. I bear a huge grudge against him not just for the money, but because he couldn't concentrate properly on the game because of it. After all, he had to think all the time: what would happen if they caught him?"

It was a sad, sordid footnote to the story of one of the finest World Cup teams of the seventies. The temptations associated with being a star footballer in the Communist bloc - when one patently did not receive the sort of recompense for one's talent and industry that was normal in the west - should not be underestimated. Gadocha's reputation as a player remains. But for those who shared the pitch with him in Germany, the memories of the event are permanently sullied.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 12:16 PM