These two articles provide a detailed examination of the infamous 1986 World Cup, held in Mexico, which was marred by significant controversy. In 1985, Mexico City was struck by a magnitude eight earthquake that devastated the city. Normally, when a disaster of this magnitude strikes a city, you expect the government to quickly organize rescue efforts to save people and provide relief, including food, housing, and other necessities, to those who have lost everything.
But the Mexican government was very delayed in responding to the earthquake due to several factors, such as the earthquake taking out state-run hospitals and communication centers. The people of Mexico City took matters into their own hands after the government failed to help people in a timely manner. They formed rescue parties to try and find survivors, created food and clothing shelters, and assumed duties normally fulfilled by the government. The president of Mexico at the time, Miguel de la Madrid, and the Mexican government as a whole, responded very poorly to the disaster, as President Madrid limited his on-site interactions with people affected by the earthquake, making speeches he gave about the disaster seem more like dehumanized statistics instead of affirmations for rescue efforts being organized by the government and the citizens.
Despite this devastating earthquake hitting Mexico City only eight months before they were scheduled to host the World Cup, the government insisted on still hosting the event in the country. The Mexican government told the people that they only planned to spend fifty-six million dollars to host the World Cup, but they needed to update far more stadiums than they initially planned, so that number soared all the way to two billion dollars by the time all of the renovations were completed. This, along with the lack of support from the government during the earthquake, had a lot of people outraged and made alot of them question if the government cared more about the World Cup than they did their own people.
This political consideration isn’t anything new for the World Cup, however, as the competition is usually used as either a statement of political power from countries like fascist Italy who hosted the event in 1934, or as a cover-up like the 1978, which was supposed to distract from the horrible things like tortures and murders of political opponents that were committed by the junta in Argentina. In conclusion, the World Cup is a privilege to host as you have the eyes of the whole world on your country for a while, but it can very easily be used for alternative means by the governments in power in certain countries.
Leave a Reply