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WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : Spotlight : RUMOR OF THE DAY

By BILL PLASCHKE
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Before the World Cup began, there were whispers that FIFA, the international governing group, would pay the Romanian team to tank its game against the United States today at the Rose Bowl to guarantee that the Americans would advance to the second round.

“The world felt that the only way the U.S. would make it to the second round would be for somebody to pay somebody off,” an official said.

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Bill Plaschke

Bill Plaschke, an L.A. Times sports columnist since 1996, is a member of the National Sports Media Hall of Fame and California Sports Hall of Fame. He has been named national Sports Columnist of the Year nine times by the Associated Press, and twice by the Society of Professional Journalists and National Headliner Awards. He is the author of six books, including a collection of his columns entitled “Plaschke: Good Sports, Spoilsports, Foul Balls and Oddballs.” Plaschke is also a panelist on the popular ESPN daily talk show, “Around the Horn.” He is in the national Big Brothers/Big Sisters Alumni Hall of Fame and has been named Man of the Year by the Los Angeles Big Brothers/Big Sisters as well as receiving a Pursuit of Justice Award from the California Women’s Law Center. Plaschke has appeared in a movie (“Ali”), a dramatic HBO series (“Luck”) and, in a crowning cultural moment he still does not quite understand, his name can be found in a rap song “Females Welcome” by Asher Roth.

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