El Semanario de Guadalajara.- In the euphoria and enthusiasm that an event like the World Cup often provokes—many times without passing through reason—we cannot and must not ignore how we would like to be left when it ends, because it is something ephemeral (how much are seven weeks, really?). Of course, we do not dismiss or disrespect what a vast number of fans experience with an event of this nature; that is, after all, why it was created.
We cannot stop thinking about what something like this can or should leave us. Perhaps some would say that what we need to do right now is “enjoy,” just “let it happen,” that we shouldn’t worry about other things.
It must be said that advertisers, “the owners of the ball,” governments, and those who control technology have already thought about what comes after the tournament, all for their own benefit.
That said, we hope that after the World Cup, after not speaking so favorably of it, citizens like us—who haven’t focused so much on the sporting side of this event—will be proven wrong, and we will be surprised by “all the good” that something like this can bring, starting with the much-touted economic spillover that, at the very least, has not benefited local merchants and restaurateurs.
We hope they prove us wrong, and that the criminal groups that in these days are not as active (we don’t know why—perhaps because, like the masses, they too are entertained watching the soccer matches), and that disrupt the order of society, keeping it on edge, will no longer exist; that they will stop interfering in elections, without corrupting authorities, and without authorities allowing themselves to be corrupted.
We hope they prove us wrong and that, after the World Cup, the authorities will continue to pay attention not only to the places where tourists might pass through, but to all those spaces where the World Cup did not reach.
We hope they prove us wrong, and that the authorities who have put so much effort into the World Cup will tell us that child prostitution, in addition to not having increased during this summer period of the soccer competition, will no longer exist in the cities of our state.
That the police officers complicit in such a detestable crime were dismissed, that not only will children be seen joyfully bathing in the fountains in the city center on official social media, but that the criminal gangs controlling the trafficking of minors will disappear, and that the children who, until now, have been invisible—because no one sees them, no one attends to them, no one has even given them a name—will finally be seen.
We do not detest soccer; it is wonderful, in the sense described by León XIV, as a sport that “reminds us of something we must not forget: life is not a race to shine alone, but a path we learn to walk together. Whoever does not know how to pass the ball, even if talented, has not yet understood the game.” Life is played as a team, pursuing the same goal.
What we detest about soccer is when it resembles a game in which there is no fair competition, and only those on one side win.