Today talk of Colombia’s star footballer who was put to death in his own country. The reason behind this death was a goal scored by an important member of the Colombian football team, Andres Escobar. Which Andre did in the goal post of his own team during the 1994 FIFA World Cup. However, Andres Escobar did not score this goal intentionally.
Actually, this is the thing about the 1994 FIFA World Cup which America was hosting. Everyone had high hopes from the Colombian team in this period. Pele, who was a great footballer, had also said that Colombia would play the semi-finals this time. In the 90s, the drug mafia was also involved in the business of betting on football matches. The team was under tremendous pressure amid threats from bookies, drug mafia and expectations of fans.
In this World Cup, on June 22, an important match was played between Colombia and America. In the same match, a self-goal was scored from Andre Escobar, an important member of the Colombian football team, and the Colombia team was knocked out of the World Cup with a loss. In fact, during the 35th minute of this match, American midfielder John Ball moved towards the Colombian goal post and then passed it to his other teammate Stewart.
The ball was going around the field to Stewart before that Andres Escobar’s foot hit the ball and the ball entered the Colombian goal post. The entire stadium was filled with silence and all the players were speechless. Andres could not forget this mistake that due to him the whole team was disappointed. On the other hand, the players and the team management were afraid of drug mafia and bookies.
Andrés Escobar returned to his home country but teammates and family members were very worried. The reason behind this was to sink the money invested in the game of drug mafia. On July 2, Andrés left the house with his friend, but while returning at night, he was shot six times in the parking lot of a nightclub. According to local reports, eyewitnesses said the attacker was shouting “round-the-clock” after being shot.
Andres, a prolific footballer, was taken to the hospital, where he was declared brought dead. The news of Andres Escobar’s death shocked the whole world. Millions of people attended Andres’s last journey. In this case, the police started investigation and one person was arrested. It was said that he was an accomplice of a major Colombian drug dealer. He was sentenced to 43 years for the murder of Andrés.
However, the sentence for this murderer of Andrés Escobar was later reduced to 26 years, then released at 11 years for good behavior. Many years later, in 2002, a life-size statue of Andres was installed in the city of Madeline in memory of him. But this incident which happened in one part of the world became a cruel memory among the people associated with football.