Sheinbaum will make history: the first host head of state to skip a World Cup opening: Arturo Villegas
From Brazil 1950 to Qatar 2022, no host leader had ever missed the ceremony. Claudia Sheinbaum will break that streak — not out of generosity, but out of fear.
On June 11 we will witness something historic: Claudia Sheinbaum will make history by skipping the opening of the World Cup. For the first time in the tournament’s history, a host nation’s leader will be absent from the marquee soccer event.
From Eurico Gaspar Dutra at Brazil 1950 to Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at Qatar 2022, every single head of state of a host country had shown up for the opening ceremony. Every one. Without exception. Until now.
The tale of the poor little girl
The President and the pro-government media — shills, to be exact — are trying to impose the narrative that her absence is a noble gesture: she gave away her ticket to a girl of modest means. A lovely story. Touching. And, as a pretext, utterly false.
Anyone with even a gram of political sense knows that Claudia Sheinbaum has more than enough power to secure at least 10 tickets in the best seats of the Estadio Azteca. The excuse doesn’t survive the slightest scrutiny. The narrative collapses on its own.
The bought-applause syndrome
The real backdrop is something else: the President — and Obradorismo in general — have grown so accustomed to bought and bused-in crowds that whenever they are exposed to critical, unscripted citizens, it generally ends in jeers.
It happened to Noroña. To Brugada. To Rocha. Even AMLO went through it at the opening of the Diablos Rojos’ new baseball stadium. The pattern is consistent and well known.
Claudia knows perfectly well that the crowd at the Estadio Azteca is not the kind that shows up to the Zócalo for a thousand pesos and a torta. They are not the elderly, victims of ignorance and need, bused in from across the country, who don’t even know why they’ve been brought to the rallies. The people in that stadium have an academic and social standing that makes it highly unlikely they are sympathetic to her.
On social media she has already lost the conversation and the narrative entirely. And she doesn’t want that spilling over into an event watched by the ENTIRE world.
The contrast with Miguel de la Madrid
It is a tremendous act of cowardice, and the contrast with what happened at Mexico ‘86 is brutal. Miguel de la Madrid, fully aware that his approval was low and the public anger palpable and evident, showed up to the World Cup opening. And he took the booing. Firm. Without hiding.
That is how heads of state should be: firm under public scrutiny. Whoever isn’t is not only a coward — he is intolerant. And if the President learned one thing well from her mentor, it was precisely that: intolerance.
What comes next
It will become more and more frequent for Claudia Sheinbaum to skip non-governmental events where the audience isn’t controlled and bused in. Their dependence on bought applause has turned them into hostages of a lack of confidence and a fear that could not be more evident.
A president who fears her own people does not deserve to govern her people.
The coup de grâce
By the way: in contrast to the President’s absence, there is a strong chance that the businessman and libertarian leader Ricardo Salinas Pliego will attend the event — which would be even more damaging to the President’s public image, since he is her principal opponent, and the one for whom there is already a clear popular groundswell to head a presidential bid in 2030.
While the President hides, her nemesis will take her place before the world. The metaphor could not be more perfect.
— Black Paper MX