WAS THIS THE DODGIEST WORLD CUP EVER?
Match-fixing claims, conspiracy theories, and a fascist dictator. The incredible story of Argentina’s ‘triumph’ in 1978
As alleged enticements to fix a football match go, it really was right off the scale. argentina — desperately needing to put four goals past Peru to reach the final of the World Cup they hosted in the summer of 1978 — were rumoured to have offered their opponents 35,000 tonnes of grain and the release of $50million for an easy ride.
It did not take long to establish that they would be getting one. They had hit the necessary number after 50 minutes, eventually winning 6-0 against their hapless fellow south americans, to progress to a showdown against Holland in which Mario Kempes famously saw them home.
debate about that match has raged since. Brazil — who were eliminated — are convinced they were cheated. argentina insist that Peru, 3-1 winners over scotland in the group stage that year, were simply not very good.
Now the mystery has come a little closer to being resolved. a new film, screened tomorrow, about the legendary blue and white ticker-tape tournament reveals details of a secret ‘emergency’ meeting at the Buenos aires sheraton, 48 hours before the fateful match, which does not reflect well on the argentines.
eight years before diego Maradona’s Hand of god dubiously did for england in Mexico City, it appears that key personnel from both camps were ordered to attend the summit. Carlose ares, a local journalist, tells the film makers that he was told after the meeting had finished: ‘don’t worry. everything will be taken care of.’ He speaks of ‘manoeuvres.’
The argentine stars whose careers were defined by that tournament insist there were no dirty tricks.
Kempes tells film makers that talk of a fix is ‘all a lie’ and Ricardo Villa, who would arrive at Tottenham Hotspur months later, insists that ‘it’s not difficult to score against Peru’.
Yet team-mate leopoldo luque is not so sure. ‘Maybe Peru were paid but we knew nothing,’ he says.
The indisputable fact is that argentine dictator general Jorge Videla saw the tournament as a vital device for bringing legitimacy to his brutal, borderline Fascist regime.
The new film — Pele, Argentina and the Dictators — is a vivid reminder of how the world looked away, despite human-rights abuses which left western europeans uncomfortable.
‘I’m not keen on the place it’s being played in,’ Brian Clough said of the tournament. Johan Cruyff refused to take part.
Protests in Holland that summer echoed recent calls for an england boycott of the imminent Russia World Cup, which is designed to showcase Vladimir Putin’s autocracy. But the dutch demands actually had conviction. ernst Happel’s side had to board their flight for south america in secret, Willy van der Kerkhof tells the film makers.
Videla — much like Putin — did not seem to have the remotest interest in football until the tournament approached, when he suddenly watched seven matches in a month. He was even prepared to tolerate left-wing bohemian manager Cesar luis Menotti, who refused to dignify him and his regime. Videla knew the meticulous 39-year-old could be a winner.
Menotti’s preparations began in October 1976, when he persuaded the argentine Football Federation to ban the sale of players to foreign clubs. Kempes, of Valencia, was the only one of the ’78 squad based abroad.
But there was an inauspicious start to the tournament. The argentines fell behind to Hungary, though came through to win. Kempes didn’t score in the group stage. Though finishing second in their group meant playing the second stage in a smaller stadium at Rosario, the atmosphere there against Poland — whom they beat — was far more passionate. Kempes found his goalscoring touch but also executed one of the most outrageous acts of cheating from a host nation, leaping on the goal line to punch away a Polish header.
a brutal 0-0 draw ensued against old foes Brazil. The definitive history of argentine football, Angels With Dirty Faces by Jonathan Wilson, chronicles 17 fouls in the first ten minutes. That left argentina needing their deluge against Peru.
a huge amount was at stake. Wilson relates how ten per cent of argentina’s national budget had been spent on new stadia for the tournament.
The film reveals that the need to satisfy the telephone needs of the world’s media led to 6,000 ordinary argentines being disconnected. The vast media centre built remains a national TV headquarters to this day.
Countless conspiracy theories and suspicions stemed from the 90 minutes that followed.
Peru’s goalkeeper, Roman Quiroga, had been born in argentina. an anonymous argentine civil servant later claimed his country had fulfilled a promise to ship grain if Peru rolled over.
In 2012, a former Peruvian senator, genaro ledesma gave evidence to a Buenos aires judge that the game had been thrown as part of the ‘Condor Plan’,
Brian Clough said: ‘I’m not keen on the place it’s being played.’ Cruyff refused to take part
an agreement between South American dictators to help each other out in the 1970s.
But dictator Videla’s visit to the Peru dressing room before kick-off was the most suspicious part. He was accompanied by Henry Kissinger, who had recently concluded his eight-year term as US secretary of state. The encounter left the Peruvians feeling worried, as the message to them had been how important a win was to Argentina. Kissinger later said he had ‘no recollection’ of visiting the dressing room.
Against this backdrop, the new film’s footage of the match is fascinating, though to the naked eye there is nothing suspicious. Peru goalkeeper Quiroga made a string of saves before his team capitulated, which suggests he was not in on any fix.
The blind eye that was turned to Videla’s atrocities was the most shocking element.
Buenos Aires’s ‘El Monumental’ Stadium, where Holland were beaten 3-1 after extra-time in the final, was 700 metres away from a concentration camp where many of the 30,000 supposed opponents of the Videla regime who ‘disappeared’ were imprisoned. Many were never seen again.
Ossie Ardiles, who was catapulted to Spurs and fame by the tournament, is the only member of the squad who admits to a sense of guilt about legitimising Videla’s regime.
‘I was university educated,’ he tells the film makers. ‘So if there was one player who knew, it was me. There was nobody else. I thought (the criticism) was a lot of propaganda but of course it was not. It was the truth’.
The 1970 World Cup, in Mexico, was also won by a South American country in the grip of a hard-line, right-wing military dictatorship. Brazilian dictator Emilio Medici sacked the team’s left-leaning coach Joao Saldanha, installed Mario Zagallo and ensured that the players were sent to a military training school for three months.
The legendary 4-1 win over Italy in the final ensued and, much like the Argentines, Pele and Tostao insist they did not know they were legitimising state violence and false imprisonment.
The Russian state machinery has already gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure success on home soil. A sophisticated system of state-sponsored doping was undertaken to ensure medals were won at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and there are question marks over footballers. But Stanislav Cherchesov’s team have won only one game in eight and could struggle to get out of the group stage.
Videla was deposed four years after Daniel Passarella lifted the trophy — when his disastrous invasion of the Falkland Islands backfired. But the mystery of the evening June 21 in Estadio Gigante de Arroyito endures.
‘It’s a bit like the JFK shooting,’ says one professor of Latin American history. ‘Peru is one of the conspiracies that will never be resolved.’
‘Pele, Argentina and the Dictators’ is on HISTORY on tomorrow night at 7pm, part of the channel’s History of Football season