Visas being denied to players and their families
Forbidding the iranian team coaches from entering the country and forcing them to direct the game from MEXICO through a tv
Players from non european countries being stopped and searched like criminals with dogs
Deporting african referees just because of their nationality
Forbidding interviews from being spoken i'm languages other than English and forbidding journalists and players from speaking their native languages
And all this just in the first week....
If I may, I want to add the issues MEXICO is having. At least some of them.
México City was "modernized" to be appealing to tourists, not functional to people living on it. We have a housing crisis, gentrification issues, several problems with public transportation, and the government has tiptoed around those to prioritize appearances.
Madres Buscadoras, groups of mothers that search for their missing family members, have been ignored and criminalized by the president, attacked by cops guarding the stadium, alongside other protesters like farmers, teachers and students. Students and reporters were arrested without explanation, threatened with violence (women with sexual violence) and then released.
Adding to this, the number of missing people in the country is 133,000. Twice the capacity of the Azteca Stadium. Families tried to raise awareness by pasting posters with the faces of their missing people around the stadium. The governor of Ciudad de México sent workers to take them down.
To avoid "showing a bad picture of the country" streets around the stadium are being closed, hours before the games, in order to deter protestors. People living in this area (like myself) are unable to move freely.
Our president, Claudia Sheimbaum, on one of the morning reports, said México is happiness, said we don't have issues, criminalized the protestors and said they want to show a bad picture of México. Avatar fans actually compared the report to this same scene, the "There's no war in Ba Sing Se" scene.
The World Cup, FIFA, and the government are trying to silence our struggles. Don't stop talking about the issues with the World Cup and the way the countries (at least USA and México) are dealing with it. Please.
