The Golden Shoe. Romanian striker Rodion Camataru (Dinamo Bucharest) won the award with 44 goals, followed by Tony Polster (Austria Vienna) with 39 goals and Nasko Sirakov (Vitosha Sofia) with 36. That were the dry numbers. Behind them, though…
Rodion Camataru collected his award for European top scorer surrounded by heavy criticism. Polster refused to attend the ceremony and to receive his Silver Shoe, accusing somewhat vaguely of ‘machinations’ used in order of winning. The plain rules for winning the award were criticized for years – traditional objections were repeated again, but this time there is new ominous element, which was suspected in the past, yet, not coming directly to the front line. Traditionally, objections were obvious: different leagues in Europe had different length and a player in championship with, say, 38 rounds naturally had more chances than one playing only 30 games in the season. And the championships were not equal at all – it was one thing to play in Italy and something else in Cyprus: even a great scorer would hardly score more than 16-18 goals in the Italian league, but generally lesser player could score 30 goals in the weak Cypriot league. Against such reasons stood another plain fact: the Golden Shoe was never won by a player coming out of the blue, only to disappear again – great scorers were at the top every year, their records impeccable. So, what if they played in weak leagues or were not huge international stars? They were great scorers in their own countries, which after all equalized Gerd Muller to Sotiris Kaiafas – all-tme top scorers of, respectively, (West) Germany and Cyprus. Unsolvable issue, but the critics got fresh fuel for their fire with the victory of Camataru, for he was not among the top 10 European scorers of the year at the time when most championships were coming to end. At the 30th round of the Romanian championship he had 30 goals to his credit. Not bad at all, but… the competition had a game or two at most to play. Romanian championship on the other hand was ending after most of the continental leagues and suddenly Camataru started to score enormous amounts of goals: 3 in the 29th round (against Corvinul, match ending 3-3), 3 in the 30th (3-3 against Otelul), 2 in the 31st (2-3 against Flacara), 4 in the 32nd (5-4 against Sportul Studentesc), 5 in the 33rd (6-2 against Jiul), 3 in the 34th (4-3 against Rapid). 18 goals in his last five games… very suspect, even the end results of the those games. But nothing to prove wrong-doing… Camataru was well established scorer in Romanian football – 169 goals in 326 games by the end of 1986-87 season. Impressive with the national team too: 17 goals in 58 games and praised at the 1984 European championship finals. Twice Romanian champion and twice Romanian Cup winner with his previous club Universitatea (Craiova), but his fantastic scoring run happened with Dinamo (Bucharest), which he joined in the summer of 1986 – that is, he became top European scorer in his first season with Dinamo, the club run by the Romanian Secret Police. But it was also the second best team in the country, having half of the national team in its roster… it was possible that with strong players around him, Camataru could score more… possible and impossible… The player defended swiftly himself when pressed by journalists: ‘I am almost 30-years old, the end of my career is nearing and I am obliged to do something with which to be remembered. The Golden Shoe was such opportunity and the circumstances helped me – when it became clear that Dinamo cannot win the championship, but cannot lose second place either, we decided to play entirely attacking football and not caring for defense. Yes, we received a lot of goals, but also scored a lot and my teammates practically played for me, providing scoring opportunities. On my part I worked harder than usual not to disappoint them and to score as many as possible.’ Plausible… such things happened before everywhere, especially when a team had nothing else to play for. Great scorers were natural consumers, teammates always playing for them – no wrongdoing in that. If there was something fixed… well, would you expect anybody spilling the beans just because a journalist is asking? Romania had great scorer before – Dudu Georgescu, so why not having another? He won the Golden Shoe twice – in 1975 with 33 goals and in 1977 with 47. His records were not seen suspect… then. In 1987 they looked somewhat different… Georgescu played for Dinamo (Bucharest) too. But nothing to prove wrongdoing and Camataru received his Golden Shoe. However, his award brought the Golden Shoe down – from now on records became instantly suspect, accusations became the norm, and the end of the award came in the 1990.
And after 1990 the true story was revealed, confronting Camataru’s words in 1987: his scores were largely fixed by the State Police, but no matter – the thing was fixing, as suspected, and the award for 1987 was given to Toni Polster.