Brutal regimes use the World Cup to hide their brutality
The FIFA World Cup kicked off in Qatar on Sunday, and with Qatar hosting soccer’s biggest tournament, the country’s human rights record has been in the spotlight. Protests from human rights organizations and from soccer associations have highlighted Qatar’s poor record on labor rights and LGBTQ+ equality. In response, Qatari leaders have denied claims of migrant worker exploitation, while the country’s World Cup ambassador declared that homosexuality is “damage in the mind.”
FIFA wrote to all 32 participating nations urging them to focus on soccer and “not the ideological or political battles that exist” and emphasizing the governing body’s commitment to diversity, mutual respect and nondiscrimination.
This isn’t the first time FIFA has come under scrutiny for turning a blind eye to human rights abuses. During the 1970s, Chile and Argentina endured episodes of state-sponsored terrorism. In both cases, despite evidence of human rights atrocities committed under conditions of military dictatorship, FIFA moved forward with plans to host a decisive 1974 World Cup qualifier in Chile and the 1978 World Cup in Argentina.
On Sept. 11, 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected socialist in the Americas, was overthrown by a military coup. In the ensuing melee, the armed forces and the new military regime detained, tortured, killed or disappeared thousands of people.
In its efforts to assert control, the regime transformed the national stadium into a concentration camp. From September to November of 1973, it held at least 20,000 prisoners who were waterboarded, beaten, shocked, sexually abused and assassinated.
The stadium soon became the focus of global interest. Shortly after the military regime began detaining prisoners there, it invited the press to tour the premises to assure Chileans and the international community that detainees were being treated humanely.
The move backfired. Reporters observed the cruel treatment of prisoners, and shocking images of
people in the stands held at gunpoint by armed guards reached the international media.
Nevertheless, FIFA chose the city of Santiago — and the national stadium — to host a decisive World Cup qualifier between Chile and the Soviet Union that November. The Soviet team refused to play at the venue and proposed the match be played at a neutral site.
FIFA officials balked, declaring: “We are not concerned with politics or what regimes are ruling a country. . . . If the Russians refuse to play Chile, then they are out of the World Cup.” The Soviet team responded with a boycott.
When FIFA’s delegation inspected the grounds, prisoners were hidden in dressing rooms and tunnels away from the playing field. The military regime then cleared prisoners out of the national stadium and sent them to a concentration camp in the Atacama Desert. The game went on as planned. Without a Soviet team on the field, Chile won unopposed and, thus, qualified for the 1974 World Cup.
In March 1976, Argentina’s armed forces overthrew the government of Isabel Perón and began waging a war of extermination against left-wing and Marxist revolutionary movements. Seeking to
reshape political life, they banned political parties and public demonstrations, shut down unions and suspended civil liberties. Thousands of Argentine people disappeared, and thousands more were tortured in concentration camps and detention centers.
Argentina had been selected to host the 1978 World Cup, a decision made back in 1966. The military’s human rights violations, however, made the country the subject of intense international criticism.
But from the perspective of the new authoritarian government, the World Cup offered an opportunity to soften perceptions of Argentina abroad, while also manufacturing popular support at home. The military enlisted the help of an American public relations company, BursonMarsteller. The agency advised the regime to counter criticisms by generating positive coverage in leading newspapers and magazines, “which will help put the Argentine reality in its correct perspective.”
Two weeks before the start of the tournament, Amnesty International urged the millions of spectators around the world planning to watch the sporting event to seek information about the countless victims of torture, imprisonment
and disappearance, “which the television will not show.” It also accused the Argentine government of exploiting the World Cup to paint an “image of a stable and peaceful country.” Activists around the globe amplified the message.
The presence of the international media in the country brought visibility to the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, an organization of women, mothers and relatives of disappeared Argentines. Dutch television journalists, for example, filmed one of their weekly demonstrations in front of Buenos Aires’s main city square. One mother told a reporter: “We just want to know where our children are. Alive or dead, we want to know where they are. . . . Please help us. Help us, please. You are our last hope.”
But the military government got its grand finale. Argentina defeated the Netherlands, 3-1, in the final to become World Cup champions.