© picture alliance / Anadolu | Daniel Cardenas
The 2026 World Cup kicks off on Thursday with the opening match at the Aztec Stadium in Mexico City between Mexico and South Africa. However, the opening of the major football event is in danger of being disrupted by protests.
German newspaper BILD listed a number of issues that could disrupt the start of the World Cup in any of the three host countries.
Teachers' protest
A protest camp has been set up in downtown Mexico City. Teachers from a radical union wing are demanding a pay raise of up to 100 percent and threatening to disrupt the tournament: previously they set fire to World Cup statues and blocked highways.
Protest by permanent owners of lodges and seats
At the Aztec Stadium, some 14,000 seats are owned by owners who bought their seats permanently when the stadium was built in the 1960s: by contract, they have permanent, free access to any event held at the stadium until 2065, including the matches at this year's World Cup that will be played there. FIFA, of course, wants to put all 83,264 seats on sale. The association of the owners of the seats won their right in a lawsuit, but FIFA is delaying the issuance of the tickets. The owners are threatening protests and violence if they cannot go watch the games for free.
Protest from families of "desaparecidos"
Some 130,000 people are missing in Mexico, and the families of these "desaparecidos" are planning a large demonstration in front of the stadium on the day of the opening match, bearing fake Panini stickers with pictures of their loved ones.
Protest by truck drivers and farmers
Demonstrations in Mexico's two other playing cities, Guadalajara and Monterrey, will also take advantage of the World Cup to highlight their problems or reinforce their earlier demands. For example, truck drivers are mounting roadblocks around the cities of Guadalajara and Monterrey and in protest of the armed robberies they face. Mexican farmers want to protest to get minimum prices for basic foods and state aid after recent crop failures.
Persistent rain predicted
And to make matters worse, Mexico City is also ravaged by persistent monsoon rain: streets are flooded, the subway network is partially down and electricity poles have been blown down. The storm is expected to last until after the opening match.
Hermetic closure of stadium
FIFA and local authorities will likely try to hermetically seal off the area around the stadium, but the combination of all these factors makes this an exceptionally challenging opening ceremony. The protests are likely to remain off-screen: the hundreds of millions of viewers of the opening match will not notice the protests on the screens of their televisions, tablets or phones.
Picture: © picture alliance / Anadolu | Daniel Cardenas