August 4, 2022 • 25 mins
In 1978, FIFA faced a simple choice: Play the World Cup in a nation ruled by a brutal military dictatorship, or move the tournament to a country that better represented the global values of fair play at the heart of FIFA’s mission. FIFA chose to chase dollars rather than stand up for human rights. This is Argentina ‘78, the World Cup of Shame, Part 1.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Now you might ask yourself, why does it matter to
me that rich men and some far off bunker in
Switzerland are taking bribes? As you'll hear in today's episode,
it's because this corruption is rooted in a system that
uses the beautiful game to perpetuate abuses that go well
beyond rich men stealing from other Richmond. The World Cup
(00:29):
was played in Argentina, a country ruled by a brutal
dictator who saw a chance to use the tournament as
a public relations coup. FIFA could have backed out, it didn't,
Just as it turned a blind eye to apartheid in
South Africa to torture in Chile. It overlooked the horrors
and Argentina just as it overlooks other horrors. Today, I'm
(00:57):
Connor Powell. This is Episode A World Cup of Shame,
Part one, uneven. Irregular, bumpy. These were the polite words
used by soccer commentators to describe the condition of the
pitch at the National Stadium in Buenos Aireas, Argentina on
(01:21):
June one. It was the opening game of the eleventh
fief of World Cup. A great deal was at stake
for General Jorge Raphael Videla Argentina's new unelected ruler. He
had just staged the brutal coup two years before Vedela.
They didn't care for soccer himself, but he loved attention,
(01:41):
and he knew the importance of image, especially when that
image would be broadcast around the world on color TV.
He also knew what stage in a successful World Cup
would mean for him and his ruly military junta. The
World Cup was a chance to scrub clean the regime's
dirty war and project legitimacy to any doubters. For FIFA
(02:06):
and its president, Jao Haavelange, the World Cup was a
chance to flaunt its growing commercial power, like the new
massive Coca Cola sponsorship. If Argentina could provide a well
run tournament, a brightly colored spectacle, without any political distractions,
and do it on Argentina's dime, FIFA would be happy.
(02:28):
It was an unholy alliance rooted in the power of prestige.
Both craved it, Fidela and FIFA. They knew how well
it would pay off. So why with so much at state?
I was the grass so bumpy, clumpy, downright crappy. Well,
it turns out seven weeks before groundskeepers sprayed the pitch
(02:52):
at Argentina's National Stadium with saltwater from a nearby river.
They were new with their jobs and clearly not qualified.
The grass turned yellow, withered, it almost died overnight. I'm
good even too. In just a few moments time, the
World Couple will be on the way in Argentina. If
(03:14):
you were sitting in the stadium or watching the opening
ceremony on TV, it couldn't really tell. All anyone noticed
where the hundreds of local kids dressed in white gymnastic
outfits proudly spelling out Argentina seventy eight, followed by a
flock of white doves released into the sky, gracefully soaring
(03:34):
up and around an excited packed stadium. Minutes later, General Adela,
dressed in a gray pinstriped suit, his dark shiny hair
slipped back, strode out before the world. Yes. Bedella promised
the nearly eighty thousand fans on hand and the roughly
(03:56):
six million more watching on TV, that this World Cup
would be a symbol of peace, and it was just
the start of the carefully staged heart tugging moments that
Vedella and the ruling military junta had planned. The whole
world was watching Argentina and Vedella and his generals. We're
(04:17):
writing a fairy tale script. And there's only one way.
A fairy tale script written by thugs who wanted to
look like the good guys can end a home team win,
to take the cup and hoist it up in front
of the whole world Cannon World Cup tournament be fixed.
Would FIFA let them with the lords of soccer, continue
(04:39):
to turn a blind eye to the murder and torture,
to play along with this fake, forced fairy tale. The
answer is yes. Teresa Israel was accustomed to the provocations,
the veiled accusations, a climate of fear. In the years
(05:02):
since the military snatched control of Argentina and installed the
mustachio general Jorge Vdela as its leader, the twenty five
year old human rights lawyer had heard and seen it. All.
Photos of her from that time show her with these
intense eyes. They say to me, I won't back down
even when the threats are real, and in Argentina the
(05:24):
threats were as real as they get. Too. Many friends
had disappeared, thousands more of her fellow countrymen had gone
missing since the generals took over. Imagine one second, you're
safely asleep in your own bed, or just riding the
bus to work or walking down the street, and the
next second you feel a jerk on your arm, punch
(05:45):
to your stomach, a scratch at your neck, and before
you know it, you're being stuffed in the back of
a green Ford falcon. The security forces always drove the
American made falcon, and you disappear. A March eighth, the
sun barely up. The threat came to Teresa Israel's door, shouting, banging,
(06:10):
and then she was gone. The screams of her family
you couldn't hear them over the sound of the Ford
falcons speeding off. March eighth seven was the last time
Teresa Israel was seen by her family. It was the
last time they knew she was alive, when to this
(06:36):
day we haven't been given any answers about where she is.
That's Marita Israel, Teresa's sister. As tragic as her story is,
Marita and her family are not alone. Some thirty thousand
Argentinian families have similar tales. Thirty thousand That was life
(06:59):
and death under General Adela's military dictatorship. When a family
member was taken, you could knock on doors You could
plead with officials, you could hold out hope, but that's
all you could do. And that's what Teresa's family did,
all the while wondering was she being tortured, was she
(07:21):
in pain? Was she even alive? They had heard the
rumors of rape and other unspeakably monstrous acts. The few
lucky families got a body to bury, Most like Teresa's
were left in the dark. The secrecy, the not knowing,
the refusals to answer. That's how the hunter terrorized the families.
(07:44):
That's how they terrorized Argentina. And on the eve of
the night World Cup, the families of the disappeared faced
another blow. The game they loved, the game that had
given them a hants to cheer for their nation, was
about to provide a banner of legitimacy for the men
(08:06):
that had taken their family members away. When we lived
those days with a lot of anger and resentment, but
also with many contradictions, because as a country we love soccer.
My sister loved soccer. The military regime was basically telling
the world there was nothing to see in Argentina. As
(08:27):
far as the rumors were concerned. It was safe, secure,
and prosperous. The families of the disappeared, of course, knew
the terrible truth. Marita Israel knew that if the junta
staged a successful World Cup, Fadela and his cronies would
be praised and her sister would be forgotten by the world.
(08:50):
For the military junta, the World Cup was a remarkable
opportunity to turn around the tidal wave of bad press.
You know, the bad press that comes when dozens of
bloated Argentinian bodies wash up on Uruguay's beaches with signs
of trauma that indicate they've been tossed from an airplane,
or the rumors that the military regime was arresting pregnant women,
(09:12):
cutting out their babies and giving the kids to regime
loyalists to be raised, and leaving the women to die.
In real life, fairy tales should be read with caution.
The more magical or improbable, the more disappointed they often
turn out to be. No sports fairy tale is darker,
(09:33):
more repugnant, more monstrous than Argentina competing for its first
World Cup on home soil. In There isn't any part
of the tale that isn't tainted, and you have to
know this because it's the reason I'm telling you about
Merita and Teresa and the bloated bodies. There were plenty
(09:54):
of clues to the horrific reality inside Argentina, and FIFA
never wavered from staging the World Cup. There bigger clues
than the clumpy, messy, uneven grass that couldn't be seen
on TV, or the incompetent groundskeepers who only had their
job because they were regimed loyalists. The British broadcaster I
(10:15):
t V referred to the political situation in Argentina ever
so cautiously when describing the World Cups choreographed opening ceremony,
someting Ober, children not taking bob. In this displace, the
ages range from sutting to seventeen I'm not a part
of It is not on accident, with no one fronting
(10:37):
age taking pop. The emphasis is wrongly on the innocence
of your prey. For many, suggestion of political involvement. Free
from the suggestion of political involvement, that phrase was very
on brand for Argentina and for FIVA and its corporate partners.
The collective blindness to Argentina's brutal military rule was no accident.
(11:00):
It was planned in Buenos Aires and in FIFA's headquarters
in Zurich. The plan was to obscure the violent, arrest,
the torture, the political murders, and the disappeared, so General
Jorge Vedela could deliver his fairy tale promise, a World
Cup of peace. And FIFA they did what they always do,
(11:21):
kept their focus on the money. A three man mulitary
junta has taken over the government of Argentina. All eyes
in the room were on them, and they knew it.
If there was any regret or second thoughts, they weren't
showing it. Why would they. General Jorge Vedela, Admiral Emilio
(11:42):
Messerah and General Orlando Augusti had known for months what
had to be done. She was weak, after all, unfit
to lead the country. Argentina deserved better than Little Isabelita,
the nickname given to President Isabel Peron. The plotters laughed.
No one in her own government even bothered to lift
a finger to help her. Country was begging for the
(12:05):
military to end the chaos. On the morning of March ten,
hours after their troops arrested President Peron, Argentina's generals were
plotting a new way forward. The economy was in shambles.
The price of basic goods bread, coffee, meat was up
more than from the previous year. Argentina's massive ballooning debt
(12:30):
only made things worse. These were men of action. They
saw themselves as Christian soldiers, the new protectors of the
Western world. First, Fidela ordered all political activity immediately stopped.
(12:53):
Congress was dismissed. Then the arrest came. They went after
the subversives, the communists, the leftist, the guerrillas, the journalists,
the lawyers, the troublemakers. They snatched them from their homes
and from the streets. If they resisted, kill them. They
would come to be known as the disappeared. After General
(13:14):
Vedela tried in vain to explain away the thousands of
missing people. What he said was that the disappeared our
different entity. Neither alive nor dead. They are just disappeared.
Then Vedella and his junta ordered all the TV and
radio broadcasts canceled until further noticed, except for one soccer,
(13:39):
the national sport. When someone asked, what about today's friendly
match against Poland, the answer was the game goes on.
From the big first day, they understood the importance of
football for national identity, but also for the own political purposes.
(14:02):
The game, the Beautiful Game was useful to the junta,
so says Professor Ron and Ryan of Tel Aviv University.
Argentinians needed a distraction, and there was no greater distraction
than soccer. Broadcast the game that was the command. The
generals understood that counseling the podcast of this game might
(14:27):
cost them dearly, so they decided to leave it on.
As the general's talked about the day's match, you could
see in General of Adela's face that he had no
interest in the sport. Soccer was dull, maybe no coincidence
that his body just wasn't built for the sport. With
his long frame and odd gate. He was nicknamed the
(14:50):
paint Panther, after the lanky cartoon character. No one dare
say it to his face, of course, but they said it.
General Vedella was skilled at a different game public relations dollars,
it might be. To him, soccer was his nation's passion,
its obsession. The priest of his country only wished Argentineans
(15:12):
were as loyal to the Church as they were to
their own soccer clubs, and so General Vedela readily agreed
with our molds, Sarah, who was a soccer fan, that
playing the World Cup in their homeland would be a
pr coup. Here's British soccer writer Stu Horsefield. Military young
to see as this golden opportunity to promote Argentina, to
(15:35):
promote very thals, to promote their style of governance, you know,
and it's a gift to the Argentine political regime. The
General's decided on that first day in power that the
World Cup, awarded by FIVA years earlier, was a priority.
(15:55):
General Vedella picked a friend one of their own, to
chair the World Cup organizing committee, a retired general and
oil executive Omar Actus. Actors knew how to get things done,
and he had even played for the Buenos Areas club
River on its third team back in the nineteen forties.
He was resolute and loyal, but was he too honest
(16:19):
our moment, Sarah, in his right hand man, Captain Carlos Lacosse,
seemed to think so. Friction was inevitable. The military junta
promised FIFA and its president Johablanch the greatest World Cup ever,
despite the dire economic situation in the country. Argentina's General's
(16:39):
vowed to spend whatever was needed, even hundreds of millions
of dollars. These are the types of promises you make.
You don't really care about the consequences, just the results.
They were going to build dazzling new stadiums, first class hotels,
modern airports, new highways. Here again, it's to horse Field
what you get with a strong government, as you will
(17:01):
get that because they see it as an opportunity to
sell to the outside world what they can do, and
what their ruling party are doing and what they're achieving,
and how great their country is, how happy their people are,
how wealthy their country is, and so for FIFA it's
a it's a win situation for them. World Cup seventy
(17:22):
eight would be Vedella's crowning achievement in FIFA. President Lanche
understood the general's goals with his close working relationship with
Brazil's military dictators. Havlange was among the first to congratulate
General Vedela after taking power under his command. FIFA never
wavered in its support for staging the tournament in Argentina.
(17:45):
The stories of brutality made no difference. They didn't see
that as their business, and of course it matches there
intention to keep politics out of sport. It was a
way of ignoring it. I think that FIFA never into
account such trivial quote unquote issues like human rights. In FIFA,
(18:07):
they try to cultivate this false image of sports being
completely disconnected from politics and they want to make sure
that the show goes on. They didn't particularly do anything
about it. They had no sanctions. They didn't try and
put an impression on art and change to change its ways.
(18:28):
They didn't. Chare's their job to pressure to consider was
hosting in the World Cup. John Sugden and Ron and
Ryan paint a picture of FIFA absolutely committed to not
seeing what was right in front of their eyes. It's
a picture we've seen over and over again, from Stanley
Rouse's willful ignorance about South African apartheid to the bizarre
(18:50):
spectacle of a game in Chile's a Stadio and Nacion. Now,
for General Adel and his cohorts, FIFA was the perfect
partner here, no even see no evil. A few months
in General Actus had a reasonable sober plan. They would
(19:11):
dedicate one hundred million dollars to World Cup infrastructure. It
was a huge number for a country suffering under crushing debt,
and General Actus was positive it was all his country
could afford of you, backed by none other than Argentina's
finance Minister Juan Ailman. But FIFA President Chao Hovlanch wanted more.
(19:31):
FIFA's rainmaker and corporate partner, Adida's boss Horse Dassler, wanted more.
A flashier stadium at the beach resort of Mar del Plata,
a modern color TV broadcasting system for the tournament. Color
images were particularly important to Dassler, who had recently convinced
Coca Cola to join Adidas as a major corporate sponsor
(19:53):
for the World Cup. Coca Cola hadn't paid millions for
its iconic red logo to be shown in black and white.
General Actus pushed back, and so did Finance Minister Ailment.
These projects were too lavish, a waste of public money.
They were certain there were more worthy projects for the
people of Argentina. General Actors haggled with suppliers, tried to
(20:16):
keep costs down. His frugality irritated angered i'm Almo Sarah
and Captain Lacosse, who had a much more flexible sense
of money management. They wanted to please FIFA. Sure impress
the world, of course, but what they really wanted to
do was line their own pockets. That penny pincher Actors
(20:38):
was standing in their way, the closed door arguments grew
more heated, the lines were drawn, the knives sharpened. General
actors threatened to break ranks, to publicly criticize FIFA for
its demands, and to tell the world about the junta's
reckless spending. Threats like that, well you better believe they
(20:59):
had consequences. In Argentina, on the morning of August, Actus
was on his way to meet his fellow generals. He
was done with the threats, the bureaucratic fights. He was
going to speak out. As he left his house, a
pickup truck with five hooded men in the back pulled up.
(21:20):
The assassination took place just a few blocks from a
police station, but the security vehicles didn't budge. As General
Actus bled out, his assassins dropped paper leaflets declaring the
Revolutionary Army of Montenero was responsible for the attack. The
military junta was happy to blame the assassination on Marxist rebels,
(21:42):
and when the bodies of thirty tortured and badly mutilated,
Marxists were found on the field outside of Buenos Aires.
The junta said it was retribution for the murder of
General Actus, but that story is never held up. General
Actus's body, riddled with bull was barely in the ground
when the junta announced Captain Carlos Lacost would now be
(22:05):
the head of the World Cup planning Commission. La Cost
was described as a man of unbridled ambition. He wasn't
going to worry about things like fiscal responsibility. Our well,
Miss Sarah Havlange and Dazzler finally had their man in place.
The cost would later end up a vice president of
FIFA and a close associate of Havlange, and he did
(22:28):
just what they wanted. He loosened the purse strings. He
might as well have been lighting money on fire, money
his country didn't have. The spending for the World Cup
went through the roof, costing Argentina and estimated seven hundred
million dollars about three billion in today's dollars. FIFA would
(22:50):
get everything it wanted and more, the stadiums, the airports,
the hotels, the highways, and at state of the art
color TV broadcasting system. It would cost more, much, much more.
Than the World Cup held in Spain four years later.
For the Junta, the goal had grown beyond worldwide legitimacy.
(23:11):
Once the opening ceremony was behind them, the Junta set
its eyes on an even bigger prize. Victory on the pitch.
Victory for Argentina was the only measure of success now.
For General Vedela A K. The Pink Panther and his cohorts,
winning a World Cup on its home soil would prove
to the world and the malcontents at home, that the
(23:34):
regime was invincible. This was the fairy tale ending they wanted,
and they would do anything to get it, and FIVA
would continue to look the other way. In our next episode,
we'll hear about FIFA's willful blindness as Fidela and his
henchman attempt to fix the World Cup final. It's part
(23:55):
two of the World Cup of Shame. The Lords of Soccer,
How FIFA Stole the Beautiful Game is an Inside Voices
Media production in conjunction with I Heart Radio. The series
(24:17):
was written and executive produced by Gary Scott and me
Connor Powell. Special thanks to Page Nichols, who helped produce
this episode and conducted interviews in Argentina for us, and
thanks to a Tia Valie for voicing our translations, and
special thanks to Donna Carney who produced our interviews in Israel.
Logan Heftel and Katie mcmurran provided the sound design with
(24:39):
assistance from j. C. Swaddick and Jake Blue Note. Alec
Cowen is our associate producer and Jeffrey Katz was our
story editor. Our fact checker is Alexa O'Brien, and thanks
to Miles Gray, who produced the series for I Heart Radio.
If you have any comments or questions, please reach out.
You can find us on Twitter. I him at Connor M.
(25:01):
Powell and Gary is at Gary Robert Scott. And if
you have any stories about FIFA, let us know. If
you like what you hear, please give us a shout
out at the hashtag Lords of Soccer
Now you might ask yourself, why does it matter to
me that rich men and some far off bunker in
Switzerland are taking bribes? As you'll hear in today's episode,
it's because this corruption is rooted in a system that
uses the beautiful game to perpetuate abuses that go well
beyond rich men stealing from other Richmond. The World Cup
(00:29):
was played in Argentina, a country ruled by a brutal
dictator who saw a chance to use the tournament as
a public relations coup. FIFA could have backed out, it didn't,
Just as it turned a blind eye to apartheid in
South Africa to torture in Chile. It overlooked the horrors
and Argentina just as it overlooks other horrors. Today, I'm
(00:57):
Connor Powell. This is Episode A World Cup of Shame,
Part one, uneven. Irregular, bumpy. These were the polite words
used by soccer commentators to describe the condition of the
pitch at the National Stadium in Buenos Aireas, Argentina on
(01:21):
June one. It was the opening game of the eleventh
fief of World Cup. A great deal was at stake
for General Jorge Raphael Videla Argentina's new unelected ruler. He
had just staged the brutal coup two years before Vedela.
They didn't care for soccer himself, but he loved attention,
(01:41):
and he knew the importance of image, especially when that
image would be broadcast around the world on color TV.
He also knew what stage in a successful World Cup
would mean for him and his ruly military junta. The
World Cup was a chance to scrub clean the regime's
dirty war and project legitimacy to any doubters. For FIFA
(02:06):
and its president, Jao Haavelange, the World Cup was a
chance to flaunt its growing commercial power, like the new
massive Coca Cola sponsorship. If Argentina could provide a well
run tournament, a brightly colored spectacle, without any political distractions,
and do it on Argentina's dime, FIFA would be happy.
(02:28):
It was an unholy alliance rooted in the power of prestige.
Both craved it, Fidela and FIFA. They knew how well
it would pay off. So why with so much at state?
I was the grass so bumpy, clumpy, downright crappy. Well,
it turns out seven weeks before groundskeepers sprayed the pitch
(02:52):
at Argentina's National Stadium with saltwater from a nearby river.
They were new with their jobs and clearly not qualified.
The grass turned yellow, withered, it almost died overnight. I'm
good even too. In just a few moments time, the
World Couple will be on the way in Argentina. If
(03:14):
you were sitting in the stadium or watching the opening
ceremony on TV, it couldn't really tell. All anyone noticed
where the hundreds of local kids dressed in white gymnastic
outfits proudly spelling out Argentina seventy eight, followed by a
flock of white doves released into the sky, gracefully soaring
(03:34):
up and around an excited packed stadium. Minutes later, General Adela,
dressed in a gray pinstriped suit, his dark shiny hair
slipped back, strode out before the world. Yes. Bedella promised
the nearly eighty thousand fans on hand and the roughly
(03:56):
six million more watching on TV, that this World Cup
would be a symbol of peace, and it was just
the start of the carefully staged heart tugging moments that
Vedella and the ruling military junta had planned. The whole
world was watching Argentina and Vedella and his generals. We're
(04:17):
writing a fairy tale script. And there's only one way.
A fairy tale script written by thugs who wanted to
look like the good guys can end a home team win,
to take the cup and hoist it up in front
of the whole world Cannon World Cup tournament be fixed.
Would FIFA let them with the lords of soccer, continue
(04:39):
to turn a blind eye to the murder and torture,
to play along with this fake, forced fairy tale. The
answer is yes. Teresa Israel was accustomed to the provocations,
the veiled accusations, a climate of fear. In the years
(05:02):
since the military snatched control of Argentina and installed the
mustachio general Jorge Vdela as its leader, the twenty five
year old human rights lawyer had heard and seen it. All.
Photos of her from that time show her with these
intense eyes. They say to me, I won't back down
even when the threats are real, and in Argentina the
(05:24):
threats were as real as they get. Too. Many friends
had disappeared, thousands more of her fellow countrymen had gone
missing since the generals took over. Imagine one second, you're
safely asleep in your own bed, or just riding the
bus to work or walking down the street, and the
next second you feel a jerk on your arm, punch
(05:45):
to your stomach, a scratch at your neck, and before
you know it, you're being stuffed in the back of
a green Ford falcon. The security forces always drove the
American made falcon, and you disappear. A March eighth, the
sun barely up. The threat came to Teresa Israel's door, shouting, banging,
(06:10):
and then she was gone. The screams of her family
you couldn't hear them over the sound of the Ford
falcons speeding off. March eighth seven was the last time
Teresa Israel was seen by her family. It was the
last time they knew she was alive, when to this
(06:36):
day we haven't been given any answers about where she is.
That's Marita Israel, Teresa's sister. As tragic as her story is,
Marita and her family are not alone. Some thirty thousand
Argentinian families have similar tales. Thirty thousand That was life
(06:59):
and death under General Adela's military dictatorship. When a family
member was taken, you could knock on doors You could
plead with officials, you could hold out hope, but that's
all you could do. And that's what Teresa's family did,
all the while wondering was she being tortured, was she
(07:21):
in pain? Was she even alive? They had heard the
rumors of rape and other unspeakably monstrous acts. The few
lucky families got a body to bury, Most like Teresa's
were left in the dark. The secrecy, the not knowing,
the refusals to answer. That's how the hunter terrorized the families.
(07:44):
That's how they terrorized Argentina. And on the eve of
the night World Cup, the families of the disappeared faced
another blow. The game they loved, the game that had
given them a hants to cheer for their nation, was
about to provide a banner of legitimacy for the men
(08:06):
that had taken their family members away. When we lived
those days with a lot of anger and resentment, but
also with many contradictions, because as a country we love soccer.
My sister loved soccer. The military regime was basically telling
the world there was nothing to see in Argentina. As
(08:27):
far as the rumors were concerned. It was safe, secure,
and prosperous. The families of the disappeared, of course, knew
the terrible truth. Marita Israel knew that if the junta
staged a successful World Cup, Fadela and his cronies would
be praised and her sister would be forgotten by the world.
(08:50):
For the military junta, the World Cup was a remarkable
opportunity to turn around the tidal wave of bad press.
You know, the bad press that comes when dozens of
bloated Argentinian bodies wash up on Uruguay's beaches with signs
of trauma that indicate they've been tossed from an airplane,
or the rumors that the military regime was arresting pregnant women,
(09:12):
cutting out their babies and giving the kids to regime
loyalists to be raised, and leaving the women to die.
In real life, fairy tales should be read with caution.
The more magical or improbable, the more disappointed they often
turn out to be. No sports fairy tale is darker,
(09:33):
more repugnant, more monstrous than Argentina competing for its first
World Cup on home soil. In There isn't any part
of the tale that isn't tainted, and you have to
know this because it's the reason I'm telling you about
Merita and Teresa and the bloated bodies. There were plenty
(09:54):
of clues to the horrific reality inside Argentina, and FIFA
never wavered from staging the World Cup. There bigger clues
than the clumpy, messy, uneven grass that couldn't be seen
on TV, or the incompetent groundskeepers who only had their
job because they were regimed loyalists. The British broadcaster I
(10:15):
t V referred to the political situation in Argentina ever
so cautiously when describing the World Cups choreographed opening ceremony,
someting Ober, children not taking bob. In this displace, the
ages range from sutting to seventeen I'm not a part
of It is not on accident, with no one fronting
(10:37):
age taking pop. The emphasis is wrongly on the innocence
of your prey. For many, suggestion of political involvement. Free
from the suggestion of political involvement, that phrase was very
on brand for Argentina and for FIVA and its corporate partners.
The collective blindness to Argentina's brutal military rule was no accident.
(11:00):
It was planned in Buenos Aires and in FIFA's headquarters
in Zurich. The plan was to obscure the violent, arrest,
the torture, the political murders, and the disappeared, so General
Jorge Vedela could deliver his fairy tale promise, a World
Cup of peace. And FIFA they did what they always do,
(11:21):
kept their focus on the money. A three man mulitary
junta has taken over the government of Argentina. All eyes
in the room were on them, and they knew it.
If there was any regret or second thoughts, they weren't
showing it. Why would they. General Jorge Vedela, Admiral Emilio
(11:42):
Messerah and General Orlando Augusti had known for months what
had to be done. She was weak, after all, unfit
to lead the country. Argentina deserved better than Little Isabelita,
the nickname given to President Isabel Peron. The plotters laughed.
No one in her own government even bothered to lift
a finger to help her. Country was begging for the
(12:05):
military to end the chaos. On the morning of March ten,
hours after their troops arrested President Peron, Argentina's generals were
plotting a new way forward. The economy was in shambles.
The price of basic goods bread, coffee, meat was up
more than from the previous year. Argentina's massive ballooning debt
(12:30):
only made things worse. These were men of action. They
saw themselves as Christian soldiers, the new protectors of the
Western world. First, Fidela ordered all political activity immediately stopped.
(12:53):
Congress was dismissed. Then the arrest came. They went after
the subversives, the communists, the leftist, the guerrillas, the journalists,
the lawyers, the troublemakers. They snatched them from their homes
and from the streets. If they resisted, kill them. They
would come to be known as the disappeared. After General
(13:14):
Vedela tried in vain to explain away the thousands of
missing people. What he said was that the disappeared our
different entity. Neither alive nor dead. They are just disappeared.
Then Vedella and his junta ordered all the TV and
radio broadcasts canceled until further noticed, except for one soccer,
(13:39):
the national sport. When someone asked, what about today's friendly
match against Poland, the answer was the game goes on.
From the big first day, they understood the importance of
football for national identity, but also for the own political purposes.
(14:02):
The game, the Beautiful Game was useful to the junta,
so says Professor Ron and Ryan of Tel Aviv University.
Argentinians needed a distraction, and there was no greater distraction
than soccer. Broadcast the game that was the command. The
generals understood that counseling the podcast of this game might
(14:27):
cost them dearly, so they decided to leave it on.
As the general's talked about the day's match, you could
see in General of Adela's face that he had no
interest in the sport. Soccer was dull, maybe no coincidence
that his body just wasn't built for the sport. With
his long frame and odd gate. He was nicknamed the
(14:50):
paint Panther, after the lanky cartoon character. No one dare
say it to his face, of course, but they said it.
General Vedella was skilled at a different game public relations dollars,
it might be. To him, soccer was his nation's passion,
its obsession. The priest of his country only wished Argentineans
(15:12):
were as loyal to the Church as they were to
their own soccer clubs, and so General Vedela readily agreed
with our molds, Sarah, who was a soccer fan, that
playing the World Cup in their homeland would be a
pr coup. Here's British soccer writer Stu Horsefield. Military young
to see as this golden opportunity to promote Argentina, to
(15:35):
promote very thals, to promote their style of governance, you know,
and it's a gift to the Argentine political regime. The
General's decided on that first day in power that the
World Cup, awarded by FIVA years earlier, was a priority.
(15:55):
General Vedella picked a friend one of their own, to
chair the World Cup organizing committee, a retired general and
oil executive Omar Actus. Actors knew how to get things done,
and he had even played for the Buenos Areas club
River on its third team back in the nineteen forties.
He was resolute and loyal, but was he too honest
(16:19):
our moment, Sarah, in his right hand man, Captain Carlos Lacosse,
seemed to think so. Friction was inevitable. The military junta
promised FIFA and its president Johablanch the greatest World Cup ever,
despite the dire economic situation in the country. Argentina's General's
(16:39):
vowed to spend whatever was needed, even hundreds of millions
of dollars. These are the types of promises you make.
You don't really care about the consequences, just the results.
They were going to build dazzling new stadiums, first class hotels,
modern airports, new highways. Here again, it's to horse Field
what you get with a strong government, as you will
(17:01):
get that because they see it as an opportunity to
sell to the outside world what they can do, and
what their ruling party are doing and what they're achieving,
and how great their country is, how happy their people are,
how wealthy their country is, and so for FIFA it's
a it's a win situation for them. World Cup seventy
(17:22):
eight would be Vedella's crowning achievement in FIFA. President Lanche
understood the general's goals with his close working relationship with
Brazil's military dictators. Havlange was among the first to congratulate
General Vedela after taking power under his command. FIFA never
wavered in its support for staging the tournament in Argentina.
(17:45):
The stories of brutality made no difference. They didn't see
that as their business, and of course it matches there
intention to keep politics out of sport. It was a
way of ignoring it. I think that FIFA never into
account such trivial quote unquote issues like human rights. In FIFA,
(18:07):
they try to cultivate this false image of sports being
completely disconnected from politics and they want to make sure
that the show goes on. They didn't particularly do anything
about it. They had no sanctions. They didn't try and
put an impression on art and change to change its ways.
(18:28):
They didn't. Chare's their job to pressure to consider was
hosting in the World Cup. John Sugden and Ron and
Ryan paint a picture of FIFA absolutely committed to not
seeing what was right in front of their eyes. It's
a picture we've seen over and over again, from Stanley
Rouse's willful ignorance about South African apartheid to the bizarre
(18:50):
spectacle of a game in Chile's a Stadio and Nacion. Now,
for General Adel and his cohorts, FIFA was the perfect
partner here, no even see no evil. A few months
in General Actus had a reasonable sober plan. They would
(19:11):
dedicate one hundred million dollars to World Cup infrastructure. It
was a huge number for a country suffering under crushing debt,
and General Actus was positive it was all his country
could afford of you, backed by none other than Argentina's
finance Minister Juan Ailman. But FIFA President Chao Hovlanch wanted more.
(19:31):
FIFA's rainmaker and corporate partner, Adida's boss Horse Dassler, wanted more.
A flashier stadium at the beach resort of Mar del Plata,
a modern color TV broadcasting system for the tournament. Color
images were particularly important to Dassler, who had recently convinced
Coca Cola to join Adidas as a major corporate sponsor
(19:53):
for the World Cup. Coca Cola hadn't paid millions for
its iconic red logo to be shown in black and white.
General Actus pushed back, and so did Finance Minister Ailment.
These projects were too lavish, a waste of public money.
They were certain there were more worthy projects for the
people of Argentina. General Actors haggled with suppliers, tried to
(20:16):
keep costs down. His frugality irritated angered i'm Almo Sarah
and Captain Lacosse, who had a much more flexible sense
of money management. They wanted to please FIFA. Sure impress
the world, of course, but what they really wanted to
do was line their own pockets. That penny pincher Actors
(20:38):
was standing in their way, the closed door arguments grew
more heated, the lines were drawn, the knives sharpened. General
actors threatened to break ranks, to publicly criticize FIFA for
its demands, and to tell the world about the junta's
reckless spending. Threats like that, well you better believe they
(20:59):
had consequences. In Argentina, on the morning of August, Actus
was on his way to meet his fellow generals. He
was done with the threats, the bureaucratic fights. He was
going to speak out. As he left his house, a
pickup truck with five hooded men in the back pulled up.
(21:20):
The assassination took place just a few blocks from a
police station, but the security vehicles didn't budge. As General
Actus bled out, his assassins dropped paper leaflets declaring the
Revolutionary Army of Montenero was responsible for the attack. The
military junta was happy to blame the assassination on Marxist rebels,
(21:42):
and when the bodies of thirty tortured and badly mutilated,
Marxists were found on the field outside of Buenos Aires.
The junta said it was retribution for the murder of
General Actus, but that story is never held up. General
Actus's body, riddled with bull was barely in the ground
when the junta announced Captain Carlos Lacost would now be
(22:05):
the head of the World Cup planning Commission. La Cost
was described as a man of unbridled ambition. He wasn't
going to worry about things like fiscal responsibility. Our well,
Miss Sarah Havlange and Dazzler finally had their man in place.
The cost would later end up a vice president of
FIFA and a close associate of Havlange, and he did
(22:28):
just what they wanted. He loosened the purse strings. He
might as well have been lighting money on fire, money
his country didn't have. The spending for the World Cup
went through the roof, costing Argentina and estimated seven hundred
million dollars about three billion in today's dollars. FIFA would
(22:50):
get everything it wanted and more, the stadiums, the airports,
the hotels, the highways, and at state of the art
color TV broadcasting system. It would cost more, much, much more.
Than the World Cup held in Spain four years later.
For the Junta, the goal had grown beyond worldwide legitimacy.
(23:11):
Once the opening ceremony was behind them, the Junta set
its eyes on an even bigger prize. Victory on the pitch.
Victory for Argentina was the only measure of success now.
For General Vedela A K. The Pink Panther and his cohorts,
winning a World Cup on its home soil would prove
to the world and the malcontents at home, that the
(23:34):
regime was invincible. This was the fairy tale ending they wanted,
and they would do anything to get it, and FIVA
would continue to look the other way. In our next episode,
we'll hear about FIFA's willful blindness as Fidela and his
henchman attempt to fix the World Cup final. It's part
(23:55):
two of the World Cup of Shame. The Lords of Soccer,
How FIFA Stole the Beautiful Game is an Inside Voices
Media production in conjunction with I Heart Radio. The series
(24:17):
was written and executive produced by Gary Scott and me
Connor Powell. Special thanks to Page Nichols, who helped produce
this episode and conducted interviews in Argentina for us, and
thanks to a Tia Valie for voicing our translations, and
special thanks to Donna Carney who produced our interviews in Israel.
Logan Heftel and Katie mcmurran provided the sound design with
(24:39):
assistance from j. C. Swaddick and Jake Blue Note. Alec
Cowen is our associate producer and Jeffrey Katz was our
story editor. Our fact checker is Alexa O'Brien, and thanks
to Miles Gray, who produced the series for I Heart Radio.
If you have any comments or questions, please reach out.
You can find us on Twitter. I him at Connor M.
(25:01):
Powell and Gary is at Gary Robert Scott. And if
you have any stories about FIFA, let us know. If
you like what you hear, please give us a shout
out at the hashtag Lords of Soccer
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