Year Ender 2021: Biggest sports controversies

2021 was a year marred with controversies. From cricket’s infamous racism comments to the sexting scandal & an Olympian languishing in jail. Here are the most chaotic scandals that rocked 2021:

Virat Kohli daughter rape threats

India suffered an embarrassing defeat against Pakistan at the World T20 and what followed it was sickening.

A 23-year-old social media user issued rape threats to Vamika after the Test captain took stand for Mohd Shami and blasted the ‘bunch of spineless’ prople.

The Hyderabad based techie who had deleted the tweet and his account, was detained by the Mumbai Police.

Ollie Robinson

Ollie Robinson's dream debut went down the drain due to 9 year-old tweets!

The English cricketer who made his debut in June suffered a huge setback. He was handed a suspension by the ECB for 8 matches after he played his debut Test where he took 7 wickets and scored a crucial 42.

In 2012-13, Robinson posted a series of Tweets that were of sexist and racist nature which got resurfaced and went viral after his debut Test.

Sexting Scandal

Australian Test skipper Tim Paine was embroiled in an embarrassing sexting scandal that not only costed him his captaincy but also his place in the Test team.

Paine stepped down just before Ashes after reports of a sexting scandal involving him and a Cricket Tasmania employee in 2017, re-emerged that were reportedly swept under the carpet by the then Cricket Australia officials.

A tearful Paine accepted his deeds in a press conference and issued a clarification before taking a break from cricket

Olympic medalist jailed

Sushil Kumar, who won 2 Olympic medals for India is now languishing in the Tihar Jail. The Delhi Police nabbed the wrestler for murdering a fellow wrestler Sagar Dhankad.

As per the police, the 38-year-old along with 12 accomplices murdered Dhankad, a budding wrestler outside Chhatrasal stadium over a property dispute.

Peng Shuai

Peng Shuai, a Chinese Tennis player reportedly went missing after she accused a senior Communist party leader of sexual assault. She however, appeared 3 weeks later at a youth tournament in Beijing.

In November, Peng said that a 70 year old, senior party leader Zhang Gaoli had sexually abused her 3 years ago.

After re-appearing, the Wimbledon doubles and French Open champion denied the allegations, but his did not ease the sports world who were earlier demanding proof of her existence by the Chinese government.

Without worrying about the financial losses, WTA took the bravest step, they suspended all their tournaments in China including Hong Kong.

European Super league

Monetising football in the name of modernizing the game became a big fail when the 12 biggest European clubs in April decided to form another league- the European Super League, which would have apparently brought more money to these big clubs.

The big 6 from EPL- Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool along with Juventus, Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid were all party to it.

The now defunct move created chaos in the football world. While some fans welcomed it, some other shunned it. The league was shut down barely 48 hours after it was annonuced as UEFA was quick to take action against the 3 clubs, Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid who weren’t ready to give up the idea.