Remembering narco-football

Back in the 1980s, Colombian football was ruled by the country's terrifying drug cartels.

Pablo Escobar owned a top flight club, and his hated enemies the Cali Cartel did too.

From kidnapping referees to prison kickabouts with Maradona, this is the story of narco-football...

By the mid 1980s, at least 6 Colombian clubs were bankrolled by cocaine kingpins.

Pablo Escobar - head of the Medellin Cartel, and then earning $50m a day from cocaine - bossed Atletico Nacional and Independiente Medellin.

The Cali Cartel ran their rivals América de Cali.

In 1989, Escobar's Independiente Medellin came up against America de Cali in a match dubbed El Gakico.

Cali triumphed 3-2, but Medellin were furious that referee Alvaro Ortega disallowed a late goal.

Escobar ordered Ortega's murder, and he was gunned down a few days later.

Meanwhile, Escobar was building a team of stars at Atletico Nacional including Faustino Asprilla and scorpion kick keeper Rene Higuita.

And in 1989, they became the first Colombian team to lift the Copa Libertadores.

But suspicious stories began to emerge from their campaign...

Before Nacional's semi final win over Danubio, a group of armed men had broken into the referees' hotel room in the middle of the night.

They handed them briefcases stuffed with $50,000 - one for each of the officials - and told them "Your head has a price".

Nacional won 6-0.

The final saw Nacional take on Paraguayan side Olimpia, who won the first leg 2-0.

Before the second leg in Medellin, the cartel struck again: "Either Nacional wins or you return home in coffins" they told the refs.

After levelling the tie 2-2, Nacional triumphed on penalties.

But Escobar's henchmen weren't impressed with the referee's performance.

After the game, they kidnapped him outside Bogota.

"We won, but you did not understand the message" they told him, before beating him up and abandoning him in the wilderness.

But it wasn't just training cones and castration machines Pablo spent his cash on: under his watch, Colombian football became a coked-up carnival.

Like this game against Hungary in 1990, where the match ball was delivered by a topless model.

A year later, the police were closing in on Escobar.

Faced with extradition to the US, the cocaine baron struck a deal to serve 5 years in Colombian prison.

But this was no ordinary prison: Escobar built 'La Catedral' himself with jacuzzis, helipads, bars and a football pitch.

Colombian football stars would be bussed in for kickabouts with Pablo, who'd also throw wild drug-fuelled parties.

Then one day, a special guest arrived: Diego Maradona.

"The place was like luxury hotel" Maradona recalled. "We had a party with the best girls I’ve ever seen."

In 1993, Escobar fled La Catedral before being shot dead on a rooftop in Medellin.

At his funeral, his coffin was wrapped in an Atletico Nacional flag.

But if you thought that would be the end of narco football, think again...

Before the 1994 World Cup, Colombia's talismanic keeper Rene Higuita was thrown behind bars.

He'd been caught delivering a ransom note from Pablo Escobar to fellow drug baron Carlos Molina.

Higuita admitted Pablo was his pal, but claimed he'd been diffusing a kidnap situation.

Nevertheless, after a 5-0 win over Argentina in qualifying, hopes were high for the World Cup.

But when Colombia lost their opening game to Romania, defender Luis Herrera's brother was shot dead by gangsters in Medellin.

Then came their infamous match against the USA...

In front of 93,000 fans at the Pasadena Rose Bowl, captain Andres Escobar (no relation to Pablo) scored a disastrous own goal in a 2-1 defeat.

Weeks later, the defender was gunned down outside a Medellin nightclub.

Apparently his goal had cost cartel bosses $3m in lost bets.

After the murder, Colombian football pledged to clean up its act. And, for a while, it did.

But in 1997, Newcastle star Faustino Asprilla received a call from a hitman, asking his permission to kill Paraguay goalkeeper Jose Chilavert.

Thankfully, Asprilla talked him out of it.