h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Have you heard the explanation of why Brazil lost the World Cup to France in 1998. Apparently .....

The bloke who headed FIFA at the time (can't remember his name) was half-French, half-Swiss therefore he wanted France to win the WC. The Brazilian FA were therefore bribed into telling their players to throw the match, on the premise that they would be handed the 2002 WC due to be staged in Japan/North Korea. This venue was beginning to show difficulties in its ability to arrange the event.

Another story tells how Nike forced Brazil to play Ronaldo in the match despite his having had some sort of fit only hours before the match. Consequently he (& the rest of the team played sub-par). This allegation is backed up by Ronaldo's name not having been part of the official team list handed in prior to the match. But then it got changed.

I reckon it was because France managed to score 3 more goals than Brazil .....

> I reckon it was because France managed to score 3 more goals than Brazil .....


Certainly a casual reading of the evidence would seem to suggest this...

However, I think the REAL conspiracy was Bilic falling over theatrically in the semi-final to get Laurent Blanc sent off, thus enabling Franck LeBoeuf to annoy the crap out of us for ever more by saying 'I won the World Cup'