FIFA, Mexico, and the most controversial World Cup of all

As the 2022 World Cup gets under way, it does so against a backdrop of controversy and dissent. Allegations of corruption and bribery have dogged the tournament ever since FIFA announced Qatar as the host venue back in 2010.

Whilst all parties continue to deny those claims, this is not the first time FIFA has been accused of such malfeasance.

Just ask the USA and Canada about the bidding process for the World Cup in 1986…

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Henry Kissinger was no stranger to geopolitics. From détente with the Soviet Union to shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, the Germany-born American was so well versed in the playbook of international relations that he ended up, quite literally, writing several versions of his own.

As the US National Security Advisor and, later, Secretary of State under successive presidential administrations, Kissinger was an unmistakably controversial figure. He also happened to be one of the most skillful and experienced negotiators of his generation. It was no surprise, then, that he was invited to lead the United States’ bid to bring to World Cup to the ‘Land of the Free’ in 1986.

With hindsight, he probably wouldn’t have been so quick to accept. “The politics of soccer make me nostalgic for the politics of the Middle East,” he later groused, and with good reason, as it turned out.

The opportunity to host the 13th edition of the quadrennial tournament was one that arose by circumstance rather than design. Initially, Colombia had been chosen to stage the 1986 World Cup, their unopposed bid being rubber-stamped by FIFA’s Executive Committee in 1974.

It had been driven by president Misael Pastrana Borrero. The Conservative former lawyer had succeeded Carlos Lleras Restrepo in the Casa de Nari?o after campaigning on a promise of aggressive cultural expansion and saging a World Cup was a key part of that vision. Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico had previously hosted the tournament. Argentina was scheduled to do so in 1978. Colombia 1986 was supposed to be Pastrana’s legacy, his gift to his compatriots.

Nothing good ever comes easy, though, does it? And so it proved for the Colombian World Cup. Since 1910, the country’s presidents had, by law, been restricted to one term in office. The announcement of his successful World Cup bid came just months before Pastrana was replaced by Liberal candidate Alfonso López Michelsen. In the years that followed, Colombia spiraled into political, economic, and social turmoil.

The ultra-violent Medellín narcotics cartel, led by drugs kingpin Pablo Escobar, appeared to be on an inexorable rise for most of the seventies, which is to say nothing of the brutal internal conflicts being waged by various left-wing guerrilla groups, such as the FARC and M-19. Battling on all those fronts was costing the government an enormous amount of money – money it could ill afford given that the national debt was rising at a terrifying rate. Senior Colombian politicians subsequently spoke of having to choose between diverting funds towards the World Cup or building schools and hospitals.

"We have a lot of things to do here and there's not enough time to attend to the extravagances of FIFA and its members."

Colombia’s weakening grip on the competition gave way completely in June 1980 when FIFA announced plans to expand the World Cup from 16 teams to 24 in time for the 1982 tournament in Spain. Whilst the news was viewed by most football fans as a good thing – more matches, greater diversity, increased opportunities to qualify – it was met with dismay in Colombia. A bigger World Cup would require more stadia, greater infrastructural improvements, and, crucially, increased security. It was more than the country had either the resources or the appetite to deliver.

Finally, in October 1982, Belisario Betancur – who had swept to power as president of Colombia two months earlier – confirmed the inevitable in a televised address to the nation.

“I announce to my compatriots that the 1986 World Football championship will not be held in Colombia,” said Betancur. “We have a lot of things to do here, and there is not enough time to attend to the extravagances of FIFA and its members.”

Almost immediately, the hosting process reopened. Three countries – neighbours, no less – all declared an interest: the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The latter had everything in place to host the tournament, having staged the almost universally acclaimed 1970 World Cup. The first edition to be broadcast around the world in full technicolour – which, in turn, unlocked a lucrative new revenue stream for FIFA – Mexico ‘70 saw a Pelé-inspired Brazil win the Jules Rimet Trophy for the third time, not to mention ‘The Game Of The Century’ semi-final clash between Italy and West Germany. Throw in the Adidas Telstar ball, Rivellino’s moustache and that thunderbolt from Carlos Alberto and it’s not hard to see why its lustre endures to this day.

There were, however, issues. Much like Colombia, questions were being asked about the country’s economic stability. At the time, Mexico was saddled with escalating foreign debt reported to be in the region of $85million. Its inflation rate in 1982 was an eye-watering 98.8%, whilst its currency had been devalued by 82.5% in just 15 months. The situation was so grave that the group behind the bid was even advertising a 42-month repayment plan for tickets to matches.

The Canadian Soccer Association (CSA), meantime, decided to bring forward its plans to bid for the 1990 World Cup. Backed by more than $50million in support from the federal government, it planned to use the nine stadiums of the Canadian Soccer League to stage the competition. Those sites, in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton and Winnipeg, as well as Regina, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, would provide 417,800 seats for an average seating capacity of 46,000. The CSA could also point to its successful staging of another recent international football tournament to strengthen its case. The 1976 Olympic Games, staged in Montreal, drew an average crowd of 40,000.

Then there was the American bid. Backed by a formal letter of endorsement from the White House, and further supported by the governors from each of the states involved, it was also able to demonstrate corporate financial backing, quality stadia, huge advertising potential and, uniquely, the opportunity for the world’s most popular sport to conquer its final frontier.

There was, though, pre-existing tension between FIFA and the North American Soccer League (NASL), the primary professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. An angry dispute broke out between the two bodies in 1981 when the NASL attempted to modify some of the rules of the game to their own advantage, such as a thirty-five yard offside line and using penalty shoot-outs to decide drawn matches. FIFA were so irritated that they threatened to expel the NASL from the association and suspend the membership of the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), who had supported the league in the dispute.

As Clive Toye, the president of the NASL’s Toronto Blizzard and a member of Canada's World Cup Bid Committee, put it “FIFA is run a bit like a country club”.

“They have to know you before you're accepted. And now here are these upstarts from Canada and the U.S., Canada from whence FIFA hasn't heard a word in years, and the U.S. from whence all they've heard is bitterness and anger, and suddenly these people say they want the World Cup.”

Kissinger was aware of it all, too. “'There's no doubt that a tension exists between the NASL and FIFA officials,” he said. “Also, there's a concern that FIFA not be overwhelmed by the American organisers, that the people who run this thing year in and year out be treated respectfully.”

Regardless, all three bids were submitted on 11 March.

May the best country win? Not quite.

Almost from the beginning, it was an open secret that FIFA – or rather its president, Joao Havelange – had a strong preference for Mexico. Havelange initially tried to refute those suggestions, insisting that the process of selecting World Cup hosts was “more than democratic” with all continents represented on the 22-man executive committee. That was certainly true. However, it was also true that two of those twenty-two men were Mexicans.

One, Joaquin Soria Terrazas, was the president of CONCACAF, the regional federation to which the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Central American and Caribbean countries belong. The other, Guillermo Canedo, was the third most senior of FIFA's eight vice-presidents. Canedo was also an executive with Televisa, Mexico’s most popular television network. Not only did Televisa hold the Mexican and US Spanish-language television rights for the 1986 World Cup, the network’s majority stockholder was also an enormously influential businessman called Emilio Azcarraga Milmo. In addition to being the owner of Mexican side Club America, which was based out of the 110,000-capacity Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, Azcarraga was also a good friend of Havelange.

"I'm sure FIFA is aware of the size of this country. The distances between our major centres hasn't changed."

Even the most agile of spin-doctors would have struggled to sell this as a righteous paragon of democracy and, before long, FIFA officials even stopped trying to conceal their bias. On 31 March, a missive was dispatched from the organisation’s headquarters in Switzerland that all-but-confirmed Mexico as the host venue for the 1986 World Cup.

“The applications of Canada and the United States deviated too much from the conditions laid down in the terms of reference which had been approved by the Executive Committee,' it said. “The special committee of FIFA has decided after careful study and consideration only to pursue the candidature of the Mexican Football federation.”

Deviated too much? In what way?

“Both files were well prepared and both contained a letter of support from the respective head of state, President Reagan on one hand and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on the other,” added the statement. “However, only nine stadia are offered against the demand for 12. Moreover, the travel distances on the North American continent represent a hardly surmountable obstacle for the World Cup organisation in view of the proposed match system.”

The Canadians were particularly incredulous. Jim Fleming, the president of the CSA, said that FIFA’s application requirements contained no restrictions on travel distances between game sites, insisting that Canada had adequate air transportation facilities to ensure all teams, media and fans could move easily from city to city.

“I’m sure FIFA is aware of the size of this country,” he added. “The distances between our major centres haven’t changed. It's strange for them to turn around and say the distances are too long now. They could have told us three years ago.”

In an apparent breach of its own rules, FIFA even decided not to make site visits to the US or Canada. Mexico? It visited Mexico early in April 1986 and reported that everything seemed to be order… even though it wasn’t.

In its 35-page Terms of Reference, FIFA mandated all host nation candidates identify at least 12 prospective stadia, each with a capacity of more than 40,000. Of those, some had to be able to accommodate more than 60,000 people, with at least one capable of seating more than 80,000, for the opening and final games. Whilst the US bid met that requirement comfortably, the Mexican bid did not. Of the 14 stadia it named, only six had a capacity exceeding 40,000.

After learning of the preference for Mexico, Werner Fricker, the vice-president of the US Soccer Federation and chairman of the US World Cup committee, sent a telex to FIFA general secretary Sepp Blatter to establish why their bid had been favoured over the Americans’. After acknowledging that “both files were well prepared”, Blatter went on to describe the American document as “superficial”, adding: “Not all the questions in our list of requirements were answered, or insufficiently so.”

Fricker reportedly then sent Blatter several telexes asking him to be more specific about what the US bid’s “deviations”. According to Fricker, Blatter never gave him an answer. Through the foreign press and other contacts, USSF officials learned that their presentation hasd not given FIFA sufficient guarantees surrounding issues such as visa, customs, security, currency exchange and other such details.

Those who had prepared the bid explained they were willing to provide the same guarantees as were made for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and that they were operating under the assumption that the other details would be discussed during a site visit. They didn’t for a second believe that omitting such details would render their bid invalid.

Fricker also sent repeated invites and requests for the FIFA special committee to inspect American stadia, hotels, airports, and communications facilities. ?

Finally, on 15 April, Blatter replied only to say that he would inform the USSF what date they would make the journey by 21 April. That day came and went. Nothing. On 26 April, a frustrated Fricker lodged a complaint with FIFA and asked how to appeal the committee’s decision not to visit. He was told that all appeals should be made to the executive committee and that, for the duration of that process, the US would have to suspend its World Cup candidacy. Moreover, the appeal would not be heard until the next executive committee meeting, scheduled to place in the Swedish capital, Stockholm on 20 May – the same day as the final vote for the 1986 World Cup host nation.

By this point, Kissinger's patience had run out.

“If FIFA had come and then made a report on merit, nobody could complain,” he told The Times. “We would accept an inspection committee at any time, on very short notice and we're willing to answer any questions, but we do not want to be pre-judged.

“It would make soccer a major sport in the US and would mean Americans traveling abroad would take an enormous interest in the game. It would be tremendous for the game if it could become a major sport in a country as sports-minded as the USA. It could be and should be.”

Whilst tethered to a seemingly inevitable fate, Kissinger and Co. still attended the meeting and pressed their case. They, like the Canadian delegation, presented a 90-page document and spent almost an hour outlining, in detail, their candidacy. The Mexican representatives, by contrast, turned up with a 12-page document and spoke for only eight minutes. Afterwards, the Mexico federation president Rafael del Castillo reportedly said: “I needed only one minute to convince them.”

In the end, the outcome was precisely as anticipated. Mexico won unanimously.

Announcing the result, Havelange stopped fractionally short of total condescension, stating: “Mexico is a real soccer country. The United States and Canada are not ready for such a competition.”

That was news to Brazilian legend Pelé, who, along with German icon Franz Beckenbauer, publicly supported the US bid. During the United States’ presentation in Stockholm, the three-time World Cup winner made an impassioned plea to the FIFA delegation, saying: “Were my own country [Brazil] the other candidate, I would still urge this group to select the United States. I have seen what is happening there. Do not shut the door on what is best for football.”

After the result was made official, he remarked: “Many of us who worked on the project for the United States were confident that we were going to win. Even Kissinger believed that’s what would happen after his conversations with Havelange.”

Kissinger added: “It is absurd that they can take decisions of this magnitude behind closed doors, without making an equal assessment of all the bids. They have got away with it for too long. We have the backing of our President and a unanimous Congress, which is more than President Reagan usually can achieve.”

The man who had helped broker an end to the Vietnam War – mediation work that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize – was left to conclude that his first foray into the politics of football had been “dismally unsuccessful”.

"Some day, if it has a shred of honesty, FIFA will cast aside its camouflage and unfurl the only banner suitable to its real purpose – crossed cash registers rampant on a sea of upturned palms."

Fricker chose his words carefully. “We don't have all the pieces to the puzzle, and that's a definite shortcoming,” he said. “We have nobody who is close to the inner circle of FIFA.”

The chairman of the Canadian World Cup bid, Georges Schwartz made no concessions to tact. Brandishing a copy of the Mexican bid, he blasted: “This document is just a joke.”

Writing in the New York Post the week after the decision was formally announced, Jerry Izenberg opined: “Some day, if it has a shred of honesty, FIFA will cast aside its camouflage and unfurl the only banner suitable to its real purpose – crossed cash registers rampant on a sea of upturned palms.”

Not everybody agreed. Guy DiVencenzo, the then USSF treasurer and a member of its World Cup executive committee, insisted the blame lay within. “Sure, we can blame FIFA,” he said, “But let’s face it, we blew it ourselves. I think the sloppy handling of it helped make it easier for FIFA to say no.”

He agreed with Blatter that the application had been superficial, describing the bid document as “frivolous”. He also claimed that a supplement to the original document was sent on May 12, eight days before the meeting in Sweden. “It was like taking a test in school, failing, and then asking the teacher if we could try again,” said DiVencenzo.

Amid the maelstrom, Havelange remained almost certifiably phlegmatic, doubling down on his appraisal of the US and Canadian bids. “What’s the use of large budgets if the games are going to be held in empty stadiums,” he said. “A World Cup should be played before full stadiums.”

Just over a year later, Los Angeles staged the 23rd Olympic Games. A combined 1,425,181 fans attended the 32 football matches – an impressive 44,537 per match. The gold medal clash between France and Brazil, played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, attracted 101,799 spectators, a record that stands to this day.

When all the medals had been handed out, more people had watched football than any other sport at the Games. Track and field was the next closest with a combined 1,129,463 spectators. Football, quite unexpectedly, accounted for 24.6% of all tickets sold in Los Angeles.?

People took notice.

Writing in FIFA’s official report, Blatter said: “FIFA and the world of sports were equally surprised: The Olympic Football Tournament surpassed the keenest hopes.

Elsewhere in the same publication, International Olympic Committee member Dr Kevin O’Flanagan observed: “All in all, Pasadena was a tremendous success for FIFA, of which they can be justifiably proud, and certainly augurs well for the future of association football in the United States.”

Tellingly, he added: “One evening well into the competition, I saw [FIFA] president [Joao] Havelange standing alone with a satisfied smile on his face. It seemed to me he was glowing with inward pride at the success he saw all around him.”

Maybe, just maybe, the United States was ready for football after all.