Opinion: From Chile to Gaza, Fifa is complicit in crimes against humanity
Argentina is “now more ready than ever” to host the World Cup, the president of Fifa said in March 1976, just two days after the country’s military had overthrown Isabel Peron’s government in a US-backed coup and inaugurated almost a decade of bloody dictatorship.
At least 30,000 people were “disappeared” by Jorge Rafael Videla’s junta, but this appeared of little concern to football’s international governing body. After the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, it elevated the tournament’s leading organiser – Navy Vice Admiral Carlos Lacoste – to Fifa’s vice presidency.
Later this month, Israel’s football team is scheduled to begin its campaign to qualify for the 2026 World Cup in North America.
As Fifa continues to resist mounting calls for the national side to be suspended from the competition, retracing the association’s dark history serves to illuminate its role in offering legitimacy to the oppressor as an instrument of the imperial international order.
