'It was gangrenous from the inside' - The rise and fall of Bernard Tapie's Marseille

Tapie was one of the most colourful and controversial characters in France, described by Patrick Le Lay, the former president of commercial TV network TF1, as "a Ferrari without brakes". Having failed to make it as a singer, or a Formula 3 driver, he entered the world of business and became a multi-millionaire by recovering bankrupt companies.

By his own admission, he "knew nothing about football" when the mayor of Marseille Gaston Defferre approached him about buying the city's one and only professional football club.

However, as an aspiring politician, Tapie was beginning to fully understand the benefits of owning a successful sports franchise, having already enjoyed great success with his cycling team La Vie Claire.

As a result, he was eventually won over by Defferre, who told him, "I'm not selling you a team, I'm not selling you a stadium, I'm selling you a public."

Much like former AC Milan owner and president Silvio Berlusconi, another colourful entrepreneur-turned-politician, Tapie saved a fallen footballing giant from potential financial ruin, acquiring Marseille for a symbolic single franc in April 1986, and quickly set about assembling the finest team France had ever seen.

Just a few months after completing his takeover, Tapie signed two members of France's 1986 World Cup squad, veteran midfielder Alain Giresse and exciting young striker Jean-Pierre Papin. It was his way of sending a message to Marseille's main rivals.

By taking Giresse away from Bordeaux and pipping Monaco to the signing of Papin, Tapie felt that he had "made them understand that, from now on, I was the boss." And Marseille unquestionably became the dominant force in the French transfer market.

Success wasn't instantaneous, though. The Division 1 title eluded them in 1987, with Bordeaux finishing four points ahead of OM, but money really was no object to Tapie, who continued to pump millions into the club.

His investment eventually paid off, as a team bolstered by the addition of further top-class players such as Franck Sauzee and Karlheinz Forster won a domestic double under Gerard Gili in 1989.

For Tapie, though, the ultimate objective was to conquer Europe, so the spending spree continued, resulting in further high-profile arrivals such as Carlos Mozer and Chris Waddle, making Marseille pretty much the Paris Saint-Germain of their day.

"I always describe it as like being on Fantasy Island," former England winger Waddle told SportsMole. "The way that we played, the role that I was given, the team structure, the players that they had - we just had an unbelievable team. The fans were second to none, fanatical. It's one team, one town.

"The changing rooms were nothing special and the Velodrome was run down but we just had this amazing team support wherever we went. We were a bit like the Harlem Globetrotters - everybody wanted a piece of us.

"The team spirit was good, the mentality of the players was strong and we had a strong chairman in Bernard Tapie, who if you lost, he was ruthless!"

Waddle discovered how ruthless when Tapie decided to ditch some of the players that had turned Marseille into arguably the most exciting side in world football, having grown frustrated by their inability to win the European Cup.

Raymond Goethals' OM had gone agonisingly close in 1991, only to be beaten on penalties in the final by a Red Star Belgrade side that had effectively played for a shootout from the very first whistle.

However, after a shock second-round exit to Sparta Prague in November 1991, Tapie decided to overhaul the squad the following year, so in came the likes of Fabien Barthez, Marcel Desailly, Alen Boksic and Rudi Voller, while fan favourites such as Waddle and Papin departed.

The bold changes had the desired effect. What Marseille lost in flair, they gained in solidity and, on May 26, 1993, Goethals' team edged out Milan in the first-ever Champions League final thanks to Boli's brilliant header just before the break.

Given the strength of the squad, and Tapie's enormous wealth, it could have been the start of a dynasty. Instead, it proved an ignominious end to Marseille's unprecedented cycle of success.

It became clear very early on during Tapie's tenure at the Velodrome that he was willing to do whatever it took to propel Marseille to the summit of European football.

In 1987, Monaco were close to completing the signing of OM transfer target Abedi Pele when Tapie convinced the Ghanaian to refuse to take a blood test as part of his medical. Then, with the help of an insider at the Stade Louis II, Tapie spread a rumour that Pele was HIV positive, which was a complete lie but nonetheless resulted in Monaco pulling out of the deal, thus allowing Tapie to swoop in and sign the attacking midfielder for Marseille. "It's like that," Tapie later said, "you have to win at any cost."

In that context, it's hardly surprising that the Marseille president was willing to literally break the law in order to realise his European Cup dream by bribing Valenciennes players to throw their game against OM six days before the Champions League showdown with Milan in Munich.

Jean-Jacques Eydelie served as Tapie's conduit. The Marseille midfielder had played with Valenciennes captain Christopher Robert and Argentine attacker Jorge Burruchaga at Nantes and, Eydelie wrote in his autobiography, "Bernard Tapie said to me, 'It is imperative that you get in touch with your former team-mates. We don't want them acting like idiots and breaking us before the final."

On May 20, 1993, Marseille opened the scoring in their decisive Ligue 1 meeting with Valenciennes with a 21st-minute strike from Boksic. Moments later, Robert went off with an alleged injury, so, at half-time, Jacques Glassmann, who had refused Robert's request to help throw the game, told Valenciennes coach Boro Primorac about the conspiracy, before then informing match referee Jean-Marie Veniel during the second half.

Veniel spoke with his fellow officials, as well as Marseille captain Didier Deschamps, and referenced Glassmann's match-fixing claim in his post-match report, but he allowed the game to continue and Marseille triumphed 1-0 to finish two points clear of PSG at the top of the table.

Two weeks later, though, Robert confessed to accepting a bribe and detectives subsequently found 250,000 francs buried in his aunt's back garden. It was all rather farcical, just like Tapie's defence that Robert had been loaned the money to start up a restaurant, but there were serious consequences for Marseille, who were stripped of their 1992-93 top-flight title and forcibly relegated to the second tier of French football in 1994.

The following year, Tapie was convicted of match-fixing and fraud and sentenced to two years in prison, although, in the end, he only served six months. He also always maintained his innocence of the charges but further bribery allegations emerged in the years that followed.

Former Rangers manager Walter Smith told The Daily Record in 2011, "I got on well with the manager of CSKA Moscow (Gennadi Kostylev) and we were having a drink before our game at Ibrox [during the group stage of the 1992-93 Champions League]. They had lost 6-0 to Marseille and I asked him about it. He said: 'My keeper and other players all have money.'

"Apparently he was also asked who he thought would make the final, Rangers or Marseille? He claimed Marseille would be there and when asked why, he said: 'They pay more.'"

Tapie was never convicted of any other match-fixing, though, and, in 2017, when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, he insisted that he had no regrets about the way in which he'd gone about his business.

“When you’ve won the Tour de France, the Champions League, you’ve been minister, singer, actor … what have I not done?” he asked in an interview with Le Monde. “I can’t say I haven’t been spoiled rotten by life.”

Tellingly, even after his death in October 2021, 'Le Boss' continued to be revered by Marseille fans, who, in the club's first home game after his passing displayed a banner at the Velodrome that read, "With you, we reached the heights!"

Not everyone views Tapie's tenure with such fondness, though. As former Monaco boss Arsene Wenger once said, "We are talking about the worst period French football has been through. It was gangrenous from the inside, because of the influence and the methods of Tapie at Marseille."

So, while he may have built a beautiful football team, the ugly truth remains that what the players produced on the pitch simply cannot be separated from the actions of their president off it. As City supporters should soon come to realise.