French sixth-tier side Tarbes Pyrenees arrived fifty minutes late for the Coupe De France match against Vabres-L’Abbay due to a GPS-related howler, and consequently, were disqualified from this season’s competition.
Due to a horrible GPS-related mishap, the players found themselves 90 kilometers away from their desired destination before kick-off and were unable to make it to the right spot on time, leading to the authorities disqualifying them from this season’s competition. The incident happened when the coach driver mistakenly put the wrong name of their destination in the GPS.
Vabres-L’Abbaye, who Tarbes were scheduled to play against, eventually secured a bye and moved on to the fifth round of the tournament. Tarbes players were even spotted running to the stadium but, unfortunately, to no avail. The Coupe De France fifth-round draw took place on the morning of October 7, without the afflicted Tarbes.
The missing letter ‘S’ eliminated Tarbes from the Coupe De France, thus taking away from them the chance to earn matchday income. However, this is not the first travel-related blunder suffered by a football team.
As reported by SportBible, a group of Benfica fans ended up six hours and 600 kilometers away from their desired destination when travelling for their UEFA Europa League quarter-final clash in 2019.
More recently, Aston Villa skipper Tyrone Mings missed the coach back home from an away game at Spurs, leaving him to make his own arrangements.
Meanwhile, Kelechi Iheanacho wasn’t even allowed to enter Poland for Leicester City’s 2021/22 Europa League group stage clash against Legia Warsaw, after the airport officials noticed a discrepancy between the Nigerian forward’s paperwork and the required visa. Leicester went on to lose the match 1-0 without their star forward.
