Disgrace of Gijón

The Disgrace of Gijón (Spanish: Desgracia de Gijón) was a 1982 FIFA World Cup football match played between West Germany and Austria at the El Molinón stadium in Gijón, Spain, on 25 June 1982. The match was the sixth and last game of the first-round Group 2, with the fifth game have concluded the previous day.

Due to the tiebreaker rules in the group stage, a West German win by one or two goals would ensure that both Austria and West Germany advanced to the next round. West Germany scored the only goal in the first 10 minutes of the match, which progressively deteriorated to a virtual standstill in the second half. Despite widespread condemnation and a formal complaint lodged by Algeria – who was consequently eliminated – FIFA ruled that neither team had broken any rules. Austrian player Reinhold Hintermaier later admitted the match was fixed.

Following this match, along with similar matches at the previous World Cup in Argentina, FIFA subsequently revised the group system for future tournaments so that the final two games in each group would be played simultaneously. This change made it highly impractical for teams to engage in match-fixing, since they would not know what result was required ahead of time.

In German, the match is known as Nichtangriffspakt von Gijón (lit. "Non-aggression pact of Gijón") or Schande von Gijón (lit. "Disgrace of Gijón"), while in Algeria it is called فضيحة خيخون (faḍīḥat Khīkhūn, "Scandal of Gijón"), and in French: le Match de la honte (lit. "The Shameful Match")); it is also satirically referred to as the Anschluss (a reference to the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938).