Camataru, the fake “golden boots”

Last update 30 October, 2023 por Alberto Llopis

The history of the Golden Boot de Rodion Camataru It is without a doubt one of the biggest traps in the history of football. And few players can have boasted of achieving an individual title as important as a golden boot in such a fraudulent way as the Romanian striker did in 1987.

Rodion Camataru: History of the Golden Boot 1987

This Romanian born forward 1958 It was one of the greatest scorers in the Romanian League. eared, good fixer defenses, but with some technical shortcomings with ball control, his good paper with the University of Craiova (with whom he won two league titles and four cups) She led him to be traded in 1986 of Dinamo Bucarest.

The Dynamo, team then led by the Ministry of the Interior and Elena Ceaucescu's favorite, president's wife Nicolae Ceaucescu, was the real alternative to the powerful Steaua Bucarest, recent winner of the European Cup.

The signing for Dinamo greatly improved the performance of Rodion Camataru, who managed to score 44 goals in 33 parties. A surprising fact considering that many of those, 20 he achieved in the last six league matches. The search turned out to be so suspicious that the Austrian Toni Polster, Payment Boot and leader of that award until the final stretch of the season, He denounced irregularities.

Polster and his companions denounced a tremendous lack of reliable data which had not even official statistics of those last matches. For more suspects, esos 20 goals in 6 parties only served to win a single game.

The fraud of the Golden Boot of 1987

En 1990, fallen the Ceacescu regime the truth of the whole event came out. The Romanian government had ordered not to defend the 100% to Camataru for this managed to score easily. The objective was to have a Romanian striker like Europe's top scorer, made that would improve the country's image abroad. De paso, provide a joy to Elena, faithful lover Dinamo Bucharest. They were two birds with one stone. Catamaru was deprived of the Golden Boot and excluded from the historical list of Golden Boot winners, passing into the hands of Polster. Thus ended one of the biggest farces of European football.