Are these the pettiest beefs in sport history?

Sometimes even seasoned sports stars can take the little things to heart

Rivalry is the lifeblood of competitive sport. It’s what drives athletes to be better. Sometimes, though, it really doesn’t take much to rile an opponent. Sometimes, sports stars can be really, really petty.

Here are just a few examples of times that sports stars took the bait, went for the moral low-ground and engaged in some brilliantly petty beef.

A 2-0 win over Lyon in September was overshadowed by some fairly playground squabbling between Edinson Cavani and PSG’s record summer signing Neymar Jr over set-piece duties.

Cavani has responded by saying that they "don’t need" to be friends. The up-shot: looks like Neymar’s on pennos. Don’t ask, don’t get.

It’s no secret that Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor and Michael van Gerwen aren’t BFFs. MVG knocked Taylor out of the semi-finals of the Grand Slam of Darts this week, and a spat between the pair ended with the Dutchman calling veteran Taylor ‘a knob’, external. Nasty stuff. Taylor had taken umbrage at Gerwen celebrating too vocally.

And before that skirmish, Taylor had also complained about another young opponent, Daryl Gurney, who had had the cheek not to include him in a round of drinks, external. Water, that is.

Darts has changed.

With all this talk of him being possibly the best player in the Premier League, external, it’s understandable that you may forget Kevin De Bruyne is still, after all is said and done, a lad in his mid-twenties who's liable to get a bit aerated when things don't go to plan.

We were sharply reminded of that fact, however, when he ended up in a bizarre and unwittingly hilarious row with team-mate David Silva during their Champions League victory over Napoli. 

De Bruyne has since said the incident was like arguing with his wife, external.

Maria Sharapova is a divisive figure in the world of tennis. Her on-going feud with Serena Williams has been well-documented and she received censure after a doping ban. 

In 2012, she and Radwańska had beef, however, over the volume of Sharapova’s trademark in-game grunt, with the Pole calling it, external, “pretty annoying” and “just too loud”.

Sharapova rallied, external with a fairly salty, “isn’t she back in Poland already?”, dig - referencing the fact that Radwańska had been beaten in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open. Bet she couldn’t hear that enough. 

To say that José Mourinho and Rafael Benitez aren’t on one another’s Christmas card lists is to say that water is wet and night follows day.

There have been a string of exchanges over the years – mostly contained to football, but a new level of playground sledging was definitely unlocked when Mourinho responded to criticism, external from his foe’s wife by suggesting, “if she takes care of her husband’s diet,” she will “have less time to speak about me”.

The story of Yaya Toure’s supposed displeasure over Manchester City’s failure to honour his birthday properly and how it almost led to him forcing a move out of the club in 2014 is a story so good that it almost serves as a parable for the modern Premier League.

The club gave Toure a birthday cake and a bit of a sing-song for his 31st as they flew to Abu Dhabi to celebrate their Premier League title win.

Toure’s agent Dimitri Seluk, however, wasn’t satisfied and went as far as to call it "really sick" that the club’s owners had apparently ignored him on his big day.

If anyone thought that sounded a bit childish, it probably wasn’t helped by Seluk going on to point out that when it was Roberto Carlos’s birthday, “the president of Anzhi gave him a Bugatti”.

Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham were two of Manchester United’s treble-winning strikers from the fabled 1998-99 season. They scored 54 goals together but, apparently, despite their understanding on the pitch, they managed all those goals without ever exchanging a word.

Cole has since revealed that he ‘hated’ Sheringham for over a decade since his team-mate snubbed his handshake, external when Cole replaced Sheringham as a sub for his England debut in 1995.

“I would rather sit down and have a cuppa with Neil Ruddock, who broke my leg in two places in 1996, than with Teddy Sheringham.”

Former Arsenal strike partners Emmanuel Adebayor and Nicklas Bendtner famously came to blows in a North London derby defeat – a spat which ultimately ended in the former being sold to Manchester City.

Adebayor has since explained, external the origins of their feud, which apparently started when Bendtner refused to take off his shoes in the dressing room – against club policy. This didn’t go down well with the Togo man:

“I cannot accept that. Even if that happened tomorrow at City, I would fight with somebody,” he went as far as to claim.

Wow. 

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