How Argentina's Junta Botched Its 1978 World Cup Sportswashing Plan

The December 2026 issue of Reason explores Argentine President Javier Milei's accomplishments and what is yet to be done.

The 2026 World Cup was many Americans' first exposure to the mafioso politics of the international soccer federation FIFA. The organization's president, Gianni Infantino, cozied up to host country president Donald Trump in various ways, such as inventing the FIFA Peace Prize to give to Trump and letting him keep the FIFA Club World Cup trophy in the Oval Office. FIFA is permeable to corruption and has a history of providing cover to controversial and sometimes authoritarian rulers—just look at World Cups hosted in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022, an exercise in sportswashing human rights abuses and geopolitical scandals.

But of the 23 quadrennial World Cups, the 1978 World Cup in Argentina is the most informative case study of sportswashing a dictatorial regime.

At the time, the country was ruled by a military junta. Two years prior, it had ousted the democratically elected Isabel Perón, accusing Juan Perón's third wife of failing to check the threat of far-left guerrilla groups. The dictators carried out the "Dirty War," deploying the full might of the military not only against the guerrilleros but also against a civil society they saw as infected by foreign subversion. Political parties, trade unions, universities, the press: No limb of the national body was spared from repression. Every smidge of dissidence—from political activism to rock music to harmless eccentricity—was targeted. Around 30,000 people were forcibly disappeared and held in clandestine detention centers for torture and extrajudicial killings. Thousands more were chased into exile, received by a horrified if disbelieving world. … [Subscribe to continue reading]