Either you tell the whole truth or you will bear the consequences. Tommy Cassidy is a man who confessed to bribing his team to rule to satisfy his conscience, and he refused to disclose the briber to satisfy his heart. His fate was suspension.
“Mr. Cassidy, who gave the ruling on the bribery meeting?“
Scott Tamm…
Cassidy knows exactly who gave the match referee a bribe, but he vowed not to expose his friend even if it cost him to stop him for life.
“Despite everything that happened to me in Cyprus, but I still adore this place, and I keep great memories there. I have made many friends and gave birth to my youngest son there.“This is how Tom Cassidy described his days in Cyprus despite what he was exposed to.
Tommy Cassidy is a man in his sixties, born in Ireland but his story happened in Cyprus.
Before arriving to Cyprus he was a player in England, beginning through the Newcastle Gate where he spent 10 great seasons with them, then with Burnley for three years after an injury that greatly affected his career and forced him to leave Newcastle, and from Burnley the move to the Cyprus League was through the Apoel Nicosia Gate.
In 1985 Cassidy retired from football in the Cyprus Cypriot after two years of brilliance, in which he restored the championships to the team after an absence since 1979, to take over the team directly.
Cassidy’s career as a coach has not been less successful than his career as a player with APOEL, to also repeat the League Championship after an absence of five years.
Apoyle’s successes with Cassidy did not stop at the domestic league championship and reached the European domain through the UEFA Cup, and there was the story.
17 September 1985 On the night of the match, the president of the club went to a restaurant on the mountain, and there I found three young men sitting with three girls, and when I asked them I knew they were the rulers of our game against Lokomotiv Moscow“ Tommy Cassidy tells the story
“The next day, I confirmed their identity when I saw them come to the playground with the girls. The match ended in a two-goal tie for each team, but I honestly noticed something that was not normal for our referee“.
“Years have passed since that important incident in my life, but I only heard about it again after I received a call from Sepp Blatter, President of the International Federation, in 1991 asking me to testify again in a corruption case related to this match“.
Apoel played the return match in Moscow and lost four goals to two goals in extra time to bid farewell to the tournament, but the consequences of the match in the lives of Cassidy and Apoil did not stop here ..
The following year, APOEL participated in the championship again, and in the first round he qualified at the expense of the Finnish Helsinki in a major achievement for the Cypriot team at that time. 1963 against Sporting Lisbon.
Apoel qualified and here he had to meet the Turkish Besiktas in the next round.
Cyprus’ relationship with Turkey is never good, as the war between them was only a few years old.
For Cassidy and his players, it is a great opportunity to meet with a Turkish team from a much stronger league than the Cyprus League, and therefore the decision of the Cypriot authorities to compel APOEL to withdraw was not comfortable for them.
“The decision of the Cypriot authorities was understandable to everyone in the club and the country in general, except me! I didn’t see it fairly, so why do we get politics into sports at all? All of these questions were dispelled after an interview with a Cypriot lady, who urged me to stand up for the match and asked me how to stick to a match with the enemy who killed her son a few years ago?“.
“It was only then that I realized that going into that match would not have been a good decision“.
“The decision to withdraw led to us being stopped by the European Union for two years, and my dreams of radiance were dashed in Europe“.
Tommy Cassidy left Apoil, who was arrested by “UEFA”, but he was detained for life because of APOIL, and the reason he confessed to UEFA was that the match referee of APOEL and Lokomotiv had received a bribe and refused to disclose the briber.
“Yes, the referee of that match got a bribe, and I saw him receiving money in his hotel room myself, but I will not disclose the person who paid this bribe.“.
“I know his name, but he is a close friend of mine, so I refused to reveal his identity because I promised him to do so“.
Tommy Cassidy refused to disclose the identity of the briber, and because of that he was stopped by the European Union from being on the bench, and was present in the stands when he faced Sparta Prague with the Irish Glintorm team in the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1997.
“When I walked out of the court room in front of Judge Yueva, I found the person who paid the bribe outside crying and throwing in my arms to thank me for my silence and apologized for the harm he caused me for life“.
Tommy Cassidy is a person who was arrested twice in his life for reasons beyond his control, and when it came to his principles he refused to be silent and admitted the fact on his team, but he refused to disclose the name of his friend, preferring to bear the legacy of a sin he did not commit.
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