Welcome to Mexico, World Cup Fans, a Paradise for Soccer and Inequality

Azteca Stadium (now Banorte), Mexico City. Photo: ProtoplasmaKid, Wikimedia. CC BY 4.0.

This year’s World Cup is historic because for the first time ever it will be co-hosted simultaneously by three countries: Mexico, the United States, and Canada. However, in Mexico it will leave behind a trail of socioeconomic blows, including huge debts the government has incurred to host it.

While the competition enjoys global passion, the tournament is structurally designed to disadvantage developing country hosts. This is not by accident. It is a deliberate design so that the world soccer tournament economically benefits the ultrarich and the Global North.

For Mexico, the soccer summer festival has already pushed the country into debt and turbocharged inequalities at a time when citizens are grappling with the high cost of living worsened by the war in Iran. Mexicans are being forced to trade their rights, livelihoods, and development for investments and refurbishment of amenities for soccer tourists.

Oops! They did it again…

From the outside, it might seem like Mexico, the United States, and Canada are equals and good friends — close enough to cooperate and organize a global event together. But that’s just cosmetic.

Here is the stark reality: the World Cup will be in Mexico, but Mexicans aren’t invited. The entry fees are out of control, plagued by dynamic pricing, speculation, and restricted access to those who can pay around 50,000 Mexican pesos ($2,870) for a ticket to the opening ceremony. This is five times the country’s minimum wage.

Not only are Mexicans being shut out of the stadiums, they are also being expelled from the World Cup landscape. There is documentation of the forced evictions of street vendors and sex workers, as well as gentrification and touristification of neighborhoods and public spaces — all to meet foreign expectations of visiting Mexico as a soccer paradise, not as the unequal and violent place it truly is.

Billions of dollars that could have been spent on education, healthcare, and local infrastructure are being diverted and pumped into beautification projects that will cosmetically facelift host cities while public hospitals persistently face significant drug shortages and schools lack basic necessities to deliver quality education.

Prepare your profits pool

The promise of the economic windfall this event will bring is another lie. Following negotiations with the government, the soccer governing body, FIFA, has beenexempted from paying taxes in Mexico. By contrast, in the United States and Canada, FIFA will pay taxes on the profits and revenue it generates. So, Mexicans end up once again paying to keep the public debt afloat while struggling to afford necessities like food and fuel.