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