The World Cup of Shame, Part 2

the signs of the area marked military control zone. Susanna Philip Floor, like so many other mothers, came every week, sometimes times every day, to these bleak government buildings to ask a simple yet deeply distressing question. Don't stand, don't this stand? Where are they? Please? Do you have my child? She and the other mothers begged, pleaded. The soldiers behind the desk, with their polished black boots were smug in

their own authority. They love to brandish it, and yet with all the power and control they possessed, they couldn't or wouldn't answer that simple question, where is my child? There's no information, the soldiers barked, come back another day. The mothers were dismissed time and time again, forced to leave, only to repeat the indignity of that walk, the inhumanity of that request, endlessly. Most families have the disappeared chased

rumors in search of a crumb of hope. Understand Annibal then that Marita Israel jumped at the news that her sister, Teresa, a young human rights lawyer, taken in March of ninety seven, had been seen alive. A woman that had been captive with my sister was released. She was young and pregnant, and she eventually managed to leave the country, but before she did that, she informed us that she had been detained with my sister. So at the time we still

had the expectation that something would happen. Nothing came of the rumor, but it didn't stop Marita from chasing other rumors. What else can you do when your loved one disappears. Disappointment in despair spread like a virus in Argentina in v seven. The mothers of the disappeared turned to Argentina's Catholic church for help, only to be told they're missing children were a test of their faith. It was a ruthless and merciless brush off by religious men who made

common cause with Argentina's brutal military junta. Then, one day in April of nine, after months of rejections and dismissals, a small group of women, only about a dozen or so, including a Susina Villaflor, quietly walked together not to a police station, but to the Plaza de Mayo, the main plaza and Buenos Aires. At first, no one noticed the women with their plain white head scarfs. They were easy to ignore. There were nobody's to anyone passing by. But

the photos they held, those couldn't be ignored. In their hands, the mothers tenderly clutched the pictures of their disappeared children, even if Argentine's refused to acknowledge the distressing rumors of what was happening in their own country. In the Plaza de Mayo, they were forced to see the faces of the disappeared and the tears of the loved ones who ate for information. The police arrived that first day, and they were always lurking nearby. They told the mothers they

weren't allowed to gather in a group. The military dictatorship forbade it, so the mother started walking around the plaza. It couldn't be any less fruitful, they thought, then their walks to the government offices. The next week, more mothers and white scarves showed up. Then they returned every Thursday afternoon to that busy square across from the Presidential Palace. They would confront the man who held the real power in Argentina. They would force General Jorge Vedela to hear

their voices, to see the faces of their children. They would stand outside of his home until he answered their only question, where are our children? As FIFA and the generals began their final preparations for the World Cup, the hunter's vice like grip on Argentina was only tightening. By the end of nineteen seven, as new stadiums were being finished, thousands of so called subversives had disappeared, their last traces lost in a black hole of bureaucratic indifference and state

sanctioned cruelty. The question became much husher, and thousands and thousands of people were enlisted, tortured, killed. As Latin American history professor Ron and Ryan reminded me, the horrors were an open secret. It was no secret that the army, the military was involved in massive human rights violations. Day by day, the regime's brutality grew, Argentina's opposition was weak.

There were no large scale protests against the military hunter, just a you dozen women walking in circles around the Plaza de Mayo. In Argentina's newspapers, words like disappeared or human rights were absent from the stories penned by journalists. Then came the challenge on the morning of October Mother's Day in Argentina. Printed in black and white, the message was a simple one. We do not ask for anything

but the truth. The paid advertisement in La Princea included two hundred and thirty seven I D card photos of the missing. The generals were forced in their own newspaper, mind you, to see the faces of the children they had ripped away from the grieving mothers. Days later, hundreds of women in white head scarves and flat soled shoes marched on Congress, armed with a petition that demanded a

full investigation. The others of the Plaza de Mayo were no longer just the despondent women of the square, not the hysterical mothers as the generals like to call them. They were now subversives, and their boldness made them targets. The mothers were harassed, detained, arrested. On December tenth, they started to disappear. A Susana Villa Flora was only a block and a half away from her home. The fresh fish she had just bought was neatly wrapped and ready

to be prepared and cooked. The mother of four had been one of the original protesters in April, begging for information about her second child, Nestor. With her home in view, villa floor was grabbed by security forces and, like her son, shoved into the back of a Ford falcon. She was never seen again. The abduction terrified the other mothers of the Plaza. More mothers went missing. For a while, the protests shrank in number. They might have given up, but

the regime couldn't help itself. It continued its kidnappings, its torture, its killings. The mothers of the Plaza regrouped, their numbers swelled. The regime did their work for them. Every new disappearance was a face on a picture in the hands of a mother and the Plaza de Mao with the World Cup around the corner. It was the type of scene neither the military, Junta nor FIFA wanted the outside world

to see. As the nineteen seventy eight World Cup approached, the families of the disappeared had one more thing to worry about, and as the national side progressed into the second round of play and then the third, their concerns only grew. An Argentinian three, they feared would mean the kidnappings, the torture, the murders were somehow justified. Marita Israel explains their fears. We watched from a place where we felt that the best thing that could happen would be that

Argentina looms. What we wanted was for Argentina to lose every game as a form of vindication. So the World Cup wasn't as useful for the dictatorship. After all. General Vedela's governing philosophy was as cruel as it was simple. Many people must die for Argentina to be safe, and a successful World Cup would prove his governing philosophy was working. Shortly after taking power in nineteen seventy six, Videla met within US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who told him

to speed up his dirty war against subversives. Kill him if you must, Kissinger urged, but just do it fast. And probably before the American Congress caught wind, some of

the world had already started to figure it out. The human rights group Emnancy International published a report just before the World Cup detailing the horrors of the military junta, torture with cattle products, jail cells smeared with urine feces, and perhaps the most terrifying detail of them all prisoners were drugged and then tossed alive from airplanes into the ocean. This was undoubtedly the bloodiest, the most bootle dictatorship that

Argentina had. It was all well documented by a host of human rights groups pressuring FIFA to relocate the upcoming World Cup. Emnesty International had even issued a warning, it's a FIFA president, Jaojavlange. Sports is not separate from politics. The stadiums of Argentina might appear, if not neutral, at least clean, respectable, civilized, protected. The true Argentine no one of prisons, torture, repression of political opposition will be carefully

hidden and denied Amnesty International. At the same time, groups in Europe mobilized the pressure FIFA. The French newspaper Laman was the first to call for a boycott domestic football associations in Germany, France and Holland were also pressure to withdraw from the tournament. Some suggested moving it. Brazil and Belgium were quietly put forward as alternative host countries. FIFA president Jaohavlange wouldn't hear of it. FIFA stayed the course.

Havalanche and Adidas CEO Horse Dassler were committed to keeping the World Cup in Argentina. Here's historian John Sugden, they didn't here's their job to pressure the country that was hosted in the World Cup. They didn't see that was that business. And of course much is the intention to keep politics so out of sports. It was a way of ignoring it. West Germany's left back Paul Brightener pulled out of the tournament on moral grounds, but he was

the only player of note to do so. From FIFA's point of view, getting involved in the messy world of human rights and democratic advocacy were roadblocks to success. FIFA wasn't the business of making money, not taking political action. Just as former FIFA president Stanley Rouse had connoodled with Chile's dictator and steered FIFA away from confronting apartheid in

South Africa. FIFA's new president, jel Haablange, barreled ahead as soccer fans from around the world gathered in Buenos Areas for the start of the eleventh People World Cup in June. Of the military Hunta had never been stronger. They mocked calls for human rights. We are human and we are right became the unofficial slogan of the Military Hunta. We are human and we are right kind of makes your

skin crawl. Even today, none of it mattered for FIFA's president, and the face of all of that pressure, Hablanch doubled down on Argentina and the converted cells of the Buenos Areas Navy Training School. The muffled sounds of FIFA's opening ceremony could be heard. Prisoners, some with festering wounds and bloodstained clothes, could just make out the Catholic blessing the TV on the guard's desk down the hall was even clearer. General Vedella, the panther and pin stripes could be heard

promising global soccer fans a World Cup of peace. The guards demanded prisoners cheer for General Vedella. There were just a few hundred meters away from the newly redesigned National Stadium as May as the Navy Training School was known, had long stopped being a school. Professor Ryan, who teaches at Tel Aviv University, didn't mince words. There's no other term to describe it but the Constipation Camp. From the outside,

it was an impressive building with tall white columns. Inside it housed thousands of so called subversives, and it was the center of the junta's torture and interrogation machine that FIFA in Argentina didn't want seen. And the mothers of the Plaza tried to make their voices heard in the opening days of the tournament, but foreign journalists who tried to interview them were harassed and chased off. Once the spectacle of the World Cup was under way and there

was little interest in talking about torture and murder. The matches had begun, I saw making the break on the left side. You heard earlier that FIFA wanted a well organized, profitable, and beautiful looking tournament. The junt of hope this World Cup would serve as a public relations boon for the regime, a scrubbing of its dirty war. The junta got its wish and then some Here's how Argentina fared on the pitch.

The veteran Argentinian side, led by the dynamic score Mario Kempis, wanted its first two matches in advanced to the second round group stage, where they defeated Poland two goals to nothing, but then their game with Brazil ended in a nil nil draw. In Argentina's prospects for advancing to the World Cup Final looked bleak. Argentina would have to win its match against Perue by at least four goals to get

past Brazil. Now, in today's world Argentina wouldn't have known how many goals it needed to win by, but they got a little help. Let me explain. Under today's rules, Brazil and Argentina would have played their respective matches at the same time to avoid any trickery. But in with future FIEFA vice president in Jaohavlan Jamigo Admiral Carlos Lacos making the schedule, Brazil played first in the afternoon, Argentina

later that evening. Because of the friendly homemade schedule, the host nation knew exactly how many goals it needed to score against Peru to advance to the final. That's a big advantage It was the first time the military junta offered Argentina's national side of boost, but certainly not the last. The fix was in. There are too many, too many news items that make us all suspicious as to this

victory of Argentina of a pool. It was supposed to be the most important soccer match of their lives, but all anyone on the bus could think about was where the are we? They screamed at the driver, how much longer? The Argentine driver blamed the delay on a few mistaken turns. He was either exceptionally stupid or intentionally making them late,

maybe both. The trip was supposed to take twenty five minutes, and after two hours on the bus, Peru's national team was no closer to a Sario Central Stadium than when they left the hotel. There was barely any traffic on the road. Everyone in the city of Sario, like the rest of the country, were at home to watch the semifinal match with Argentina. Peru's semifinal match against Argentina, well they even have a chance to warm up. Some took

long drags on their cigarettes. It was the seventies. Folks and soccer players even smoked on the sidelines. Many of Prus players are already piste off even before they set foot on the bus. They were tired and exhausted and increasingly nervous. The night before, the Argentine's made sure they had all the advantages of home soil, hotel security guards actually Argentinian soldiers quietly disappeared in the night, only to be replaced by dozens of fans shouting, singing, hanking car horns,

and banging on pots and pans. The noise lasted well into the evening. Now the provings were used to these types of pre match antics. Every soccer player on the road has been woken up by opposing fans. But the reason you get to the stadium early is to warm up and to rest on the day of their most important match. Everest players CRUs national team lost in a black hole of a bus ride wouldn't get the opportunity

to do either. And this is just the start of the dirty tricks the military junta would pull to make sure their team one. With his brown tortoiseshell glasses and permanent pout, the now former U S Secretary of State Henry Kissinger still carried himself like America's top divelmat when he arrived in boy in this areas, and he was treated like one by the gaggle of reporters following him

and the line of generals who welcomed him. Kissinger lost the role of Secretary of State when Jimmy Carter was elected in nine six, but he still carried a great deal of influence. I've always wanted to visit Argentina, he told reporters in his famously gruff and almost guttural voice. I can see that Buenos Aires is simply dazzling, he added. For good measure, the Argentine's desperate for approval lapped it up.

A lifelong soccer fan who had attended multiple World Cup finals, Kissinger's trip to Argentina was a mix of business and pleasure. For days, he was photographed around town, meeting with celebrities, businessmen, and politicians. If the only thing missing from the World Cup was the official US government seal of approval, the ruling junta made sure everyone in Argentina new Kissinger had given them his support. His trip had been meticulously planned

by Argentina's generals. Kissinger was, after all, the guest of honor, so when the doors to the locker rooms swung open. Deep down in the bowels of a Sario's central stadium. There was stunned silence. Everyone in Peru's locker room was scrambling to get ready. The noise from the crowd shook the dressing room walls. The Peruvians had finally arrived at the stadium just an hour before kickoff. Then someone, no one remembers who realized they were standing face to face

with Argentina's dictator general of a Della. What is he doing here? Then they saw those tortoise shell glasses, that infamous pout. But then I saw Kissinger and I thought, what's Henry Kissinger doing here? It was unsettling, to say the least. Prue star player Jose Velasquez remembers that bizarre meeting. He told the British broadcaster Channel four. We started looking at each other and wondering, shouldn't they have gone to the Argentine room. Not what's going on? I mean they

wished us luck. Why it left us wondering. Even in both Adela and Kissinger had not quiet. I wouldn't want to meet them in a dark alley reputations, but more I don't really want to meet their associates in the dark alley reputations. In front of the camera, both men were all smiles. Another Peruvian player, Hector chum Petez, told Channel four that Vedela rambled on about the brotherly spirit

of sport that all South Americans suppose only shared. We're not looking at Badela and Kissinger came into our dressing room. It seemed like they were just that to greet us and welcome us. They also said they hoped it would be a good game because there was a great deal of anticipation amongst the Argentinian public, respectful platitude decide. There was also a not so subtle, darker message, a threat that really took a while to sink in. One Carlos

Oblitas told FIFA dot Com about it decades later. I was changing and I didn't give it much importance. I gave it much more importance later when I thought about it. General Vedela read a letter out loud from Peru's own military strongman, General Francisco Morales Bermudez, which referenced the mutual cooperation between Argentina and Peru. General Vedela then looked at the Peruvian players and added ominously that he hoped things

turned out well, and then he turned and left. No One was thinking about how it happened, but everyone watching the World Cup semifinal was amazed that it was happening. With a three goal lead over Peru, Argentina was on the bleeding edge of a World Cup miracle. Now the impossible they probable. The veteran Argentinian side needed just one more goal to knock out Brazil in clinching improbable spot

in the final. Trouble Okay checked out. The crowd unleashed an earth shaking cheer when in the fiftieth minute Leopold Luke headed the ball into the goal, the go ahead goal, and then the earth really did shake. The bomb blast left want A Alman's house a smoldering mass of debris. The match against Peru cost me the bombing of my home. The moment Argentina scored the fourth goal and qualified for the finals, a bomb exploded in my house. Almen was

no left wing rebel or communists aversive. He was a senior member of the Argentinian government, the finance minister, but he'd opposed the military's wasteful World Cup spending, earning him the wrath of Abriel, Miss Sarah and Captain Lacosse a present from mass Sarah because I had criticized the enormous amount of money spent on the World Cup. The present, as the ailman described the bomb to Dutch filmmakers years later, it was time to coincide with the fourth goal, almost

as if someone knew the clinching score was coming. It seems almost obvious that the Argentina put such a pressure on Peru, and the Peruvian had no choice but in the way to allow Argentina not just will but win seeks to zeal. The order to fix the match came from the top, of course, but the other generals agreed with Fidela's command. Argentina must win by any means necessary, bribes, threats, kidnapping. The regime was too close to realizing its destiny. Every

victory made it stronger. How did the brutal regime ensure such a lopsided victory against Peru. Nothing is certain, but the evidence goes far beyond a reasonable doubt. At this point, the cost in the military junta left nothing to chance. Peru started the game brilliantly. Their first goal attempt in the early minutes hit the crossbar, just missing an opportunity to take an early lead. Then their energy just fizzled. Prus defense wasn't just uninspired, it appeared to be non existent,

almost comically so. Argentina scored two more times after the go ahead goal. The sixth to nothing thrashing left many to speculate Pru's goalkeeper ramone A Loco Kiaroga was on the take. His parents were Argentine, he was born there, and six balls was just too many for a goalie of his caliber to miss. It's long been rumored he admitted to accepting bribes back in the day, but ki Roga denies it and his blame Prus manager for assembling

a sub standard squad for the match. At least three Peruvian players, including Rodolfo Manzo, have acknowledged being offered bribes, though not necessarily taking them. British newspaper The Sunday Times reported Argentina's ruling Hunta offered Prue's dictator a deal he couldn't resist through the match, weapons, thirty thousand tons of grain and a fifty million dollar line of credit. It the evidence here is circumstantial, but it isn't some bar

stool conspiracy theory. Either pressed Yes, we were pressured. What kind of pressure pressure from the government, from the government to the managers of the team, from the managers of the team to the coaches. That's Jose Velasquez, one of Prue's star players, telling the UK's Channel four News he believes the Provian government ordered his substitution. It was an unusual move and a crucial game. Something happened. Our team

was changed. I was dropped after ten minutes in the second half, when we were already losing by two goals. There's no reason to change me. I was always a key player, so what can one think. In two thousand and twelve, former Peruvian senator Gennaro Ledesma offered testimony in a special Argentine human rights court that backed up allegations at the Peruvian government was in on the fix. I want to propose the anulment of the nineteen seventy eight

World Cup. Argentina should give it back. It should be investigated by THIFA and by the Argentine judiciary. At the time, La Desmo was a progressive labor activists in Peru. He claimed he was one of thirteen people abducted by Peru's military regime and sent to Argentina again Channel four with the interview Perus sent its political prisoners to Argentina in order to disappear them. Peru's president offered to return this favor by losing their World Cup game with Argentina by

a large school. In addition to his testimony in court, he signed an affidavit under penalty of perjury, meaning the evidence of a fix is a bit more than circumstantial. Look, Argentina was likely always going to defeat Peru. They were the better side, but winning by four goals was a

monumental task. Only two other teams had won by such a margin, Germany over Mexico and the Netherlands are for Austria winning by six with all the rumors and accusations, it starts to look a little well ridiculous, and for a regime willing to kill anyone to retain power, what's a little match fixing. In the championship game, Argentina's star striker Mario Kempis almost single handedly dismantled the Dutch defense. Kempis scored twice, including the winning goal in a hundred

and fifth minute. Argentina, the underdogs, the home team one three to one. It was a gritty and dramatic final played on a pitch covered in white confetti, confetti that accumulated like snow as the game war on. It was nothing short of surreal. Argentina's victory was celebrated as a fairytale ending to a magical World Cup. Disney couldn't have written a more enchanting script, nor could the best Hollywood cinematographers have designed the more visually stunning tournament just made

for color TV. A great football nation, rocked by political upheaval, pulled off at home what it had never done before. Argentina had won the World Cup. Thedela and his supporters got everything they had hoped for in the short term. It was a huge political victory for the military regime, undoubtedly, and this allowed them to continue ruling, at least until

congratulations poured in from around the world. Argentina had overcome the naysayers, the critics, the human rights activists, and former U S Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was on hand to congratulate his dear friend, General Jorge Videla. FIFA was over the moon and how well the tournament was run. The ruling military hunter basked in the global praise at a lavish FIFA banquet in the ornate French style ballroom

of the Buenos Aires Plaza Hotel. The congratulatory hugs and kisses on the cheek were only interrupted by the clinking of champagne glasses to Argentina, to the military, to General Vedela. Senior members of the ruling military junta shared canopies in a five course meal with FIFA's executive committee as they savored Argentina's victory from the night before. The only ones

missing were the Dutch players. After losing to Argentina three to one, the Netherlands collectively turned their backs on FIFA and the Argentinian regime. They refused to collect their second place medals. The Dutch had no desire to rub shoulders with General Vedela or the rest of his murderous military regime. Some of the players also believed the referees were paid

to throw the game to Argentina. No that FIFA seemed to care much about the rumors or the missing Dutch players at the finals banquet, and the General certainly didn't. As the alcohol flowed, FIFA's president Gal Havlang stood up to speak. The room quieted as the imposing Brazilian lifted his glass and thanked his Argentine hosts. Havlang then singled out Captain Carlos LaCosta, showering special praise on the soon

to be FIFA Vice President for his efforts. Havlanch ended his toast by saying, without a hint of embarrassment, now the world had seen the true face of Argentina. Across the country, Argentinians celebrated the fairy tale championship for days. The streets overflowed with people dancing and cheering. A wave of national euphoria swept through the country. Among the thousands in the streets of Buenos Aires were several dozen prisoners.

Captors at the Navy training school had packed them in vehicles, forcing them at gunpoints to stick their heads out of car windows. That disappeared were allowed to breathe in the celebrations, but not to taste them. They were forced to watch as their countrymen, saying songs, drank to excess and pay

tribute to the regime that tortured them. That disappeared within returned to their cells, now filled with the knowledge that the regime had succeeded, had hoisted the World Cup trophy, and in doing so, had erased them from their nation's collective consciousness. I remember a sort of euphoria, but a euphoria that was yes, it was contradictory. For the families of the disappeared, like Marita Israel, that victory has forever

damaged their relationship with Argentina's national soccer team. Even today, the Hunter's use of the World Cup as a political instrument for repression and to secure its own popularity still cuts deep. I really like soccer, but when I watched the World Cup, I don't cheer for Argentina. I can't may Argentina win. It's impossible for me to say that.

There's no way. The Argentinian journalists Ezekiel Fernandez More has described the World Cup as the most obvious political manipulation suffered by sports since the ninety six Olympic Games in Nazi Germany. Even today, the dark side of its fairy tale victory haunts Argentina. But there's no arguing the first championship was a huge boon for the military Hunta. It helped them stay in power for five more years before democracy was restored in some thirty thousand people were killed

during the junta's military rule. Many of the bodies of the disappeared remained missing, Teresa Israel's included and just as in the Mothers of the Plaza, at least the few that are still alive are at the square every Thursday, thirty four years later, still pleading, still demanding answers from their government. General Jorge Vedella and Armoral Emilia Massarah were both tried and convicted for crimes against humanity and would spend most of the rest of their lives in and

out of prison, and both would die behind bars. Vice Admiral Carlos Lacosse would later become a key member of FIFA's executive committee and a close ally of Jaohavlang. The cost would later be forced to step down from FIFA because of a long list of criminal charges he faced in Argentina, including the murder of General Actus, his predecessor

on the World Cup organizing committee. Chall Hablan try to remain FIFA's president until he used a considerable amounts of his own political power to try and keep the Costs from ever seeing the inside of a prison. The shame of World Cup seventy eight is hard to calculate the institutional rot that let it happen. That's easier to figure.

On the next episode of The Lords of Soccer, you'll see a direct line between FIFA's approach to Argentina and what happened in Brazil when the World Cup arrived in two thousand and fourteen. The Lords of Soccer, How FIFA Stole the Beautiful Game is an Inside Voices Media production in conjunction with I Heart Radio. The series 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 Tea Bowie 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 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'm at Connor M. 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 h