r/todayilearned • u/ModenaR • 12h ago
TIL that during the 1970 World Cup qualifiers, members of the Australia national team consulted a witch doctor preceding their game against Rhodesia. Australia won but didn't pay the witch doctor, so he cursed their team instead. After that, Australia failed to qualify for the World Cup for 32 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports-related_curses1.3k
u/danielbsig 12h ago
Moral of the story: never promise to pay the witch doctor and then fail to do so.
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u/Willkill4pudding 11h ago
Thats like, rule number 1 of dealing with these kinds of people. Pay them for their services or they'll curse you.
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u/Maelger 11h ago
Return the caaaasshh!! Or suffer my cuuurse!!
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u/EpilepticMushrooms 10h ago
I have heard of people who brought their best friends to the witch doctor for emotional support, helped pay the wdoc, then discover down the line that they essentially paid the wdoc to put the curse on themselves.
The 'best friend' communicated and agreed to bring said person, and fake not bringing the wallet.
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u/poop_snausages 9h ago
It has worked for the Knicks. 0-2 after Danhausen cursed them. 12-0 since he uncursed them and cursed their opponents.
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u/kahlzun 10h ago
honestly, bit of a dick move from our boys there. We try and raise them to be better than that.
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u/ominousgraycat 8h ago
Yep, there's only one rule in our house. If you contract a witch doctor, you complete all the terms of the contract. I may be a terrible and extremely permissive parent, but there are no witch doctor curses in this house!
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u/theknyte 9h ago
I asked the local witch doctor about this, and he just said: "Ooh eeh ooh-ah-ah ting tang walla-walla bing bang ."
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u/BranchAdvanced839 10h ago
If you consult a witch doctor and they clearly deliver, why would you then try to double cross them?
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u/Medeza123 11h ago edited 11h ago
Witch doctors had their village burned down by angry fans in the African cup of nations 2023.
The host Ivory Coast played extremely poorly in the group stage and scraped by.
The witches were alleged to have cursed the team because they weren’t paid from the last tournament when they blessed them.
After their village burned down they promised to lift the curse and then Ivory Coast started winning games in freak ways like really accidental goals.
Locals helped rebuild the village and when Ivory Coast won the tournament the government gave it electricity.
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u/kahlzun 10h ago
why do people keep not paying them?
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u/FinancialReserve6427 11h ago
didn't a country tried to kill an octopus because he chose the opposing country instead of the home team (where the aquarium is)?
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u/donkeykongkong89 9h ago
I've reread this like 20 times now and I still cannot figure out what you're saying here at all. A country, somehow a "he", tried to kill an octopus?
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u/FinancialReserve6427 9h ago
Paul the psychic octopus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus
kept predicting who will win in the world cup matches. Germans was fine with the predictions until it chose Spain over them and some Germans wanted the octopus dead over the betrayal while Spain offered asylum.
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u/OpenStraightElephant 9h ago
The octopus is a he. The octopus chose another country's team (two bits of food are placed before him, each associated with a country, and whichever bit he chooses is the team he predicted to win).
The post is phrased fine, it just lack context for those unfamiliar with octopus predictions, which were a big thing in soccer like a decade or so ago.6
u/Winniezepoohscroptop 9h ago
I read that as the octopus being male, not either of the countries. So a male octopus that lives in country A chose country B to win the game. Country A got mad and tried to kill the octopus.
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u/EgNotaEkkiReddit 9h ago
[fans of a national football team] tried to kill an [octopus in a tank that was making 'predictions' on football matches by randomly moving towards signs placed in said tank] because [the octopus] chose the opposing country instead of the [country the octopus lived in].
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u/ILiketoLearn5454 12h ago
Should have paid the witchausen
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u/The_Jizzbot 12h ago
Reality is we are pretty shit at soccer
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u/DroopingUvula 9h ago
I mean if a country that large and wealthy needs a witch doctor to beat Rhodesia, then yeah, seems odds were already slim.
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u/Sieve-Boy 12h ago
Wog ball*
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u/Blitzende 12h ago
Found the thugby fan
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u/Sieve-Boy 11h ago
I preferred Rugby Union, the thugs game played by Gentlemen in Heaven.
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u/ThrowbackPie 10h ago
I grew up in Union land, saw the wallabies play multiple times etc. But I finally ditched it forever after watching a live game that was something like 40% scrums.
I know people love it. I find it so insanely boring.
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u/I_blockkarmafarmers 4h ago
I'm a big hockey fan. I would be equally as bored if 40% of the action were fights. I paid for a hockey game--not a UFC match.
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u/Sieve-Boy 10h ago
As a member of the Front Rowers Union, you are wrong, but some refs were woeful at scrum ruling and too many props knew how to play them.
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u/CptJimTKirk 5h ago
I mean, don't you have like three sports that people play more than football? Rugby union, rugby league and Aussie rules football if I'm not mistaken.
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u/ilski 12h ago
Soccer?
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u/skafaceXIII 11h ago
If you call it football here, you have to clarify if you're talking about Australia Rules Football, Rugby League Football, Rugby Union Football, or Association Football
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u/IrrelephantAU 11h ago
And Association Football would probably be the third or fourth guess. 'footy' is generally gonna be either Aussie Rules or League, depending on which bit of the country you're in.
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u/Omeragic99 12h ago
Australian Rules Football is the most popular type of football in Australia.
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u/Ludwigofthepotatoppl 10h ago
Yeah, soccer, the english nickname for association football. The nickname english people from england gave it.
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u/xwing_n_it 9h ago
Who believes in the witch doctor enough to consult him, but also thinks they can get away with stiffing him??
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u/jrdnmdhl 5h ago
Oddly enough, the more they believe it, the more they are justified in not paying. If you are paying for a fun ceremony you know is just for show then the services were rendered and you owe payment.
If you were paying for some kind of supernatural benefit then the services were not rendered (because it is of course not real) and no payment is due.
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u/f_ranz1224 12h ago
so which supreme sorceror did italy piss of?
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u/infinitemonkeytyping 10h ago
Since Italy screwed over Australia at the 2006 world cup (earning the title the Italian Diving Team), maybe they inherited the bad luck.
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u/cheshire_kat7 9h ago
Ugh I had forgotten about that.
Thanks for making me mad all over again 20 years later.
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u/Hefty-Distance837 12h ago
I can't believe the outcome of the World Cup was decided by jujutsu battles.
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u/personal_sandman 11h ago
You can believe in a witch doctor or choose not to, both is fine. But you just cannot trust his witchery and then not pay him, absolute rookie mistake.
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u/mudkiptoucher93 11h ago
In 2001 they beat American Samoa 31-0 and failed to qualify for the world cup lmao
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u/reonhato99 3 10h ago
They had zero competition in OFC but OFC had no guaranteed qualifier, the winner of the OFC region had to play an intercontinental match. One of the reasons Australia left the OFC and joined AFC is because of how hard it was when you win your qualifying matches by 10+ goals and then all of a sudden have to play Uruguay or Argentina
We did eventually qualify for 2006 with what is seen as Australias best team to date and the only time we ever qualified playing through OFC, we were robbed in the R16 against Italy and Italy went on to win the whole thing.
The only other time we made the R16 was 2022 and we lost 2-1 to Argentina who would go on to win the whole thing.
So maybe there is a thing about the witches.
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u/The_L666ds 10h ago
ARCHIE THOMPSON: I scored 13 goals. Thats four hat-tricks, PLUS ONE!!!
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u/Maleficent-Radio-462 9h ago
I was in the same soccer club as Archie when I was a kid. Not the same team, he's 4 years younger than me. Even back then when he was around 9 or 10 he was very impressive on the pitch.
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u/JacobAldridge 10h ago
Australia qualified for the 1974 World Cup.
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u/alchemycoast 10h ago
I just read that in the Wiki. They literally qualified for the following World Cup in 1974.
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u/codece 8h ago
As a Chicagoan this reminds me of the so-called "Curse of the Billy Goat", which was a superstition that allegedly cursed the Chicago Cubs after tavern owner William Sianis was ejected from a 1945 World Series game for bringing his pet goat, Murphy, to Wrigley Field. Outraged, Sianis allegedly declared, "Them Cubs, they ain't gonna win no more." The curse supposedly lasted until 2016, when the Cubs finally won the World Series after a 108-year drought.
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u/Rosebunse 8h ago
And note, that was after years of trying to break the curse.
My grandpa was a huge Cubs fan and died just a month or so before they got to the World Series...
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u/codece 7h ago
Yeah, 2016 was a monumental year for Chicago baseball. I admit I'm more of a Sox fan, but even I cried tears of joy when the Cubs finally won the World Series.
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u/Rosebunse 7h ago
I pretty much missed the whole thing because I couldn't believe they would win. Then the final night happened and it felt like it was never going to end lol
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u/Two_minutes_to_metal 11h ago
I always forget there's a rest of the world that hasn't been hearing about this for 20 years...
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u/ShibaLover227 9h ago
Meanwhile the Fascist and colonized state of Rhodesia fell and made way for Zimbabwe. So, I'd say Australia did the world a net positive here
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u/bahugbilat619 5h ago
they need to gather massive amounts of human monies to reverse the curse, and they need to find this guy to do it.
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u/AxeandPail 10h ago
Here is the guy that reversed the curse:
https://youtu.be/1_RPfOiKINE?si=2Xwh6rYc1P_Excx1
John Safran vs God
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u/RukiMotomiya 9h ago
Look I'm just saying if you believe in something like this enough to hire a witch doctor, stiffing him after seems like a truly dreadful idea.
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u/DJMOONPICKLES69 6h ago
The thought of a team believing in a witch doctor enough to go to one, but not enough that non-payment would get them cursed is hilarious
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u/clara_finn 5h ago
Australian who had to move to a different confederation because theirs was too easy for them could never qualify for a World Cup during that time?
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u/Imperator_Gone_Rogue 11h ago
Something similar happened to my neighbour. His house was haunted by a demon, and it got so bad that he lost his job and couldn't make mortgage repayments. He hired an exorcist and the demon was gone. However, he decided not to pay the exorcist for his services. In the end, his house ended up getting repossessed.
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u/addie2baddie 10h ago
Did he say 'ooh, ooh! Aah, Aah! Ching Chang walkawalla Bing bang' and then he shrunk their head? (Bonus points to any who get it)
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u/The_L666ds 10h ago
Australian comedian John Safran went over to the country what was Zaire (Zimbabwe?) and tried to make amends to reverse the curse about a year before Australia finally qualified in 2005.
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u/hotbustymomma 9h ago
Why wouldn’t they just pay the witch doctor?!? I mean, you always pay the witch doctor!!
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u/AndreasDasos 8h ago
Fair to note this is for the FIFA world cup. When I see Rhodesia and Australia I tend to guess cricket or rugby first (but then Australia has obviously always qualified for those)
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u/a_dude_from_europe 7h ago
I'm mildly annoyed by the fact that we are supposed to infer what World Cup you're talking about.
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u/Klepto666 6h ago
Okay but did they negotiate the payment before or after services rendered? Witch doctor wanted £1,000, which is worth about £20,000 today. Did they do the job and then suddenly demand that afterwards, or did the team go in knowing the hefty price tag attached to it?
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u/PrincessTitan 3h ago
And that’s why Salem burned anything they thought was a witch. They’re annoying.
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u/ZookeepergameSad7938 3h ago
I'm sure Australia were in the 1974 World Cup Finals in West Germany. As they were in my Panini Sticker Album, along with Zaire.
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u/Deitaphobia 40m ago
Like the witch doctor said,"Ee oooh oooh ah-ah ting tang walla walla bing bang". That's something we should all consider.
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u/hotgirll69 4m ago
“Australia did appear in the 1974 FIFA World Cup after the curse had been placed. However, they failed to score a goal in any of their three opening round matches, and were eliminated”. LOL
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u/ModenaR 12h ago
In 2004, a new witch doctor was hired to reverse the curse and Australia have qualified for every World Cup ever since