Legend wants more international matches
Toni Polster’s bizarre fight against “injustice”
November 16, 2023, 5:26 p.m
The statistics for Toni Polster show 95 international matches and 44 goals for Austria. There’s something missing, says the former Bundesliga professional – and has called in a lawyer. It’s about three games and who can recognize them. He says it’s not about records.
Austria’s football legend Toni Polster wants to polish up his international record with legal help. The 59-year-old has hired a lawyer because he wants to get three more international matches and three goals officially recognized. “Anything else would be a huge injustice,” Polster told the Austrian news agency APA.
Specifically, he is concerned with games in Liechtenstein in 1984, in Tunisia in 1987 and in Morocco in 1988 that were previously considered unofficial. Because there was no international match calendar at the time and no obligation to reserve national players, the respective associations agreed on the playing conditions among themselves. This meant that you could sometimes switch in and out at will. At that time, Austria’s ÖFB association consciously decided to classify certain international matches as unofficial.
Austria would be very happy to help
“We are of the opinion that it is exclusively up to the ÖFB to recognize the games and goals or not,” said Polster’s lawyer Manfred Ainedter. So far, discussions with the association have remained fruitless.
The ÖFB, however, refers to the world association FIFA, which does not allow subsequent recognition of the games because the necessary criteria for official games are not met. “We would like to help Toni. We have no reason not to want his games and goals to be credited to him, but unfortunately our hands are tied,” said ÖFB General Secretary Thomas Hollerer.
Polster’s official statistics currently show 95 international matches. With 44 goals, the former Bundesliga professional is Austria’s record goalscorer ahead of Inter Milan’s Marko Arnautović, who has 36 goals in 110 international matches. Polster said it wasn’t about securing his record. “This is simply an injustice that stinks to high heaven and that I would like to have corrected,” explained the former top striker.