Lasagnegate is the informal name given to the events of 6-7 May 2006, when ten members of the Tottenham Hotspur squad were struck down with illness on the eve of one of the biggest matches in recent Spurs history - in their final league game of the season, Spurs only needed to match the result of Arsenal who played Wigan, in their match against West Ham United on 7 May, to secure a place in the 2006-07 UEFA Champions League. This would be the first time since 1961-62 that Spurs had played in Europe's premier club competition.

Affected players[]

Response[]

Tottenham requested to the Premier League that the game be delayed, but the police would not allow a kick-off later than 5pm due to crowd concerns. Spurs risked being fined or even docked points if they did not play out the match at the 3pm kick-off time, which would have jeopardised their Champions League push regardless of the result against West Ham. As a result, the game went ahead at the scheduled time.

The match[]

Spurs had fourth place in their hands with the score standing at 1-1, until the 56th minute when Arsenal took the lead against Wigan Athletic to move above Spurs into the Champions League places. Spurs required a winning goal to qualify, but Yossi Benayoun of West Ham provided the Hammers with a victorious goal of their own in the 80th minute, by which time Arsenal led Wigan 4-2 in their match. Spurs lost 2-1 and finished fifth after failing to match Arsenal's result.

Aftermath[]

Tottenham appealed to the Premier League to have the match replayed, but this was rejected as no grounds were found for accepting the request. Chairman Daniel Levy called in the police to investigate the Marriott Hotel and threatened to sue the hotel chain and Premier League over the incident, having wrongly suspected foul play. Tests by the Health Protection Agency on the food at the hotel soon proved to be negative for sources of food poisoning, and instead players were identified as having norovirus.

Conspiracy theories[]

Arsenal’s players were conveniently staying at the neighbouring Four Seasons hotel.

Jermain Defoe, meanwhile, pointed the finger at his former club, telling FourFourTwo in 2017: “I thought, ‘Something has definitely gone on here – one of the West Ham lads has done something to the food.’”

Similar events[]

Ahead of the final two games of the 2021-22 season, Tottenham found themselves in an almost identical position mathematically to the end of the 2005-06 season. Spurs went into the final game of the season needing only a single point against already-relegated Norwich City - who were sitting bottom of the table - to qualify for the following season's UEFA Champions League. Their only rivals for qualification were coincidentally Arsenal, who needed to beat their opponents Everton and hope that Norwich claimed a win against Tottenham in order to overtake their rivals.

Following a crucial 3-0 victory for Tottenham in their antepenultimate match against Arsenal, a number of stomach upsets were reported in the Tottenham camp, with the affected players being Dejan Kulusevski, Hugo Lloris, Pierluigi Gollini and Harry Winks. These illnesses came just a day before Spurs' penultimate game of the season against Burnley. Despite this outbreak, Spurs won the game 1-0.

Five days later and two days before the final game of the season, Harry Kane came down with a similar illness which sparked rumours that food poisoning was once again raging through the Tottenham team, in eerily similar circumstances to the events 16 years prior. Manager Antonio Conte reassured fans after the news broke, announcing that Kane would "for sure" be available for selection against Norwich. Kane scored in a 5-0 victory to complete UCL qualification.