In 1934 and 1978, Fifa’s big event was given over to authoritarian aims. There’s no more doubt that 2026 will be the same

By 1934, it was entirely evident what Benito Mussolini was up to. Italy’s dictator had already consolidated power, colonized Libya and annexed the city of Rijeka. He nevertheless got to stage the second-ever World Cup, managing it with a heavy hand and even supplanting the Jules Rimet trophy with a far larger one. Hosting and winning that World Cup didn’t sate his expansionist appetites. By the end of the decade, Mussolini would take Ethiopia, annex Albania and back Francisco Franco in the Spanish civil war.

It was equally well established in 1978 in Argentina that General Jorge Rafaél Videla’s military junta, which had taken over two years earlier, was maintaining its grip on power through systematic detention, torture and murder. Still, protestations from other nations were ignored and the World Cup kicked off.

Leander Schaerlaeckens’ book on the United States men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out on May 12. You can preorder it here. He teaches at Marist University.