Review: How Colombia lost the 1986 world cup and what to learn from it

Discussion in 'FIFA and Tournaments' started by The Germans are coming, Jun 19, 2015.

  1. The Germans are coming

    Aug 13, 2014
    Nat'l Team:
    Burkina Faso
    In light of recent events surrounding FIFA I thought this is something interesting to look into and to explain. I would like to make clear that I did not open this thread with the intention of having a debate over certain world cup bids and if certain countries should or should not host.

    What I want to do here, is to share some details that I gatherd out of some research over the subject regarding a past case when a nation lost the right to host the world cup and what lessons can be learned out of this particular case in general - regarding all future events. I bought some old newspaper editions from the years 1982, 1983 and 1986 from editors and am summerising what I got out of this here.

    Colombia was awarded the right to host the 1986 world cup in 1974. In the years leading up to the event the main concern was not drug violence but the incompetence of the organisating comitees of the host nations. Over several years when they should have been investing money into stadiums and inferstructure, the organisating comitee invested most of it`s funds into marketing campaigns promoting the event. By 1982, after 8 years of preperation and only 4 more years untl the event was to start, the only thing that the incompetent Colombian organising comitee had managed to create was a logo for the world cup, which it presented at the closing ceremony of the 1982 world cup with the line "Los esperamos en el Mundial Colombia 86." In fact there werent even stadiums in Colombia by 1982 that would have been fit for the purpose of hosting a single world cup match, the inferstructure was terrible with most host cities not conected through roads, airports or rail networks required to provide mobility for fans and teams during the event.
    But it was not the inferstructure that in the end created the biggest concerns over the hosts viability. By the late 1970s and early 1980s drug violence started to explode all across Colombia. Besides the already ongoing armed conflict with FARC rebel groups, this provided additional concern for foreign observers. The downing of airliners by drug cartels, street wars in major cities, conflict in rural ereas, assassinations of officials, increased availablitly of drugs and the conected violence that comes with drug use all made this seem worse and worse.
    Confronted with the situation in Colombia the then UEFA boss, the Italian Artemio Franchi commented: "Nobody wants to go there, but we have to. Nobody can take away the world cup from Colombia. The only solution would be the returning of the hosting rights."
    With growing opposition to the event taking place the then FIFA vice president, president of the world cup organisation comitee and German federation boss wrote the Colombian FA a list of demands:
    • 12 Stadiums.
    • 2 Stadiums with 80 000 visitor capacity.
    • All host cities conected to each other with rail lines.
    • All host cities conected to each other with airports with commercial jet capacity.
    • All host cities conected to each other via highways.
    • And many more demands....
    The list had obviously been intended to be unrealizable, because Colombia would have only had until November 1982 to accomplish all of this, meaning they had only had 3-4 months. Adding to that some of the demands were literaly physicaly impossible - one of the host cities had the Andes mountain range seperating it geographicaly from the other cities making it impossible to conect it to the other host cities directly via highway or rail.
    The Colombian FA was fuming with rage over the demands but in the end had to give up it`s hosting rights. Mainly because FIFA stated that the possibility is there for there not even being a world cup in 1986 if demand were not met and that Colombia would in the end have to take the blame for it. In a revot shortly after Mexico and the USA bid for the hosting rights and Mexico won out (it is rumored mainly through some dealings the Mexican FIFA executive Guillermo Cañedo made with the then FIFA president Havelange).
    In the end Colombia didn`t even qualify for 1986 as they were kicked out in qualifying by Paraguay.

    What is to be noted out of all of this is that out of the Colombia fiasco no such thing that lawmakers would call "legal Precedent" evolved. There is no "lex Colombia" - meaning that this incident was not used by FIFA as an event out of which to learn something and write down a set of laws a guidlines which would underline in which case the world cup hosting rights could be taken away, or which obligations a host nation had to fullfill to keep the hosting rights.

    To summerise and put it direct: Nothing was learned out of all of this.

    It is interesting that Colombia was pressured by FIFA so hard that they had to give the event up. I guess Havelanges FIFA was to dirty to have even considered looking for dirty laundary in the bidding process. And I think that FIFA really did want to avoid making it political by directly adressing the drug violence and social situation in Colombia.
    But in summery, this should really not be the way to take the world cup hosting rights from a nation. To simply publish a list of new reuirements out of the blue to force a nation to give up the hosting rights, and to threaten that country with telling them that the world will blame them if there is no world cup - has no solid legal foundation and is very arbitrary.
    A fixed set of rules, standards and requirements regarding social stability, human rights, inferstructure and social mobility would be miles batter and more fair.
     
  2. Metropolitan

    Metropolitan Member+

    Paris Saint Germain
    France
    Sep 5, 2005
    Paris
    Club:
    Paris Saint Germain FC
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    The world cup 1986 has been attributed to Colombia by Stanley Rous' FIFA, not by João Havelange's FIFA. This is something very important because both men had very different conception of what the World Cup should become.

    Havelange has been elected President on June 10th 1974 in Frankfurt, winning against Rous, only the day after the World Cup was attributed to Colombia. He wanted the World Cup to become a much bigger and global event than his predecessor, but he had to do with what was decided before him. During the 1978 congress in Buenos Aires, FIFA under Havelange will enlarge the competition from 16 to 24 teams with the decision taking direct effect. That means the bidding formats proposed by both Spain and Colombia to host 1982 and 1986 were out of date, and thus should be renegociated.

    While of course the enlargement of the tournament from 16 to 24 teams wasn't the main concern about Colombia hosting the event (even if it was still a big one), this opened the opportunity for FIFA to enforce new requirements which weren't initially planned, which made things easier to pressure on Colombia.


    There's always been a fixed set of rules standards and requirements in the world cup bidding process. For the 2018 and 2022 world cups, those were as follows:
    - Bidding country and Host Cities
    - Hosting concept
    - Football development
    - Sustainable social and human development
    - Environmental protection
    - Stadiums
    - Venue-specific team hotels and venue-specific training sites
    - Team base camp hotels and team base camp training sites
    - Accomodation
    - FIFA headquarters
    - Transport
    - Information technology and communication network
    - Safety and security
    - Health and medical services
    - Competition-related events
    - Media facilities, communications and public relations
    - Media and marketing rights
    - Finance and insurance
    - Ticketing
    - Legal and Government guarantees
     
    unclesox and Excape Goat repped this.
  3. elviejomen

    elviejomen Member+

    Aug 3, 2007
    Hasbrouck Heights NJ
    Club:
    Junior Barranquilla
    Nat'l Team:
    Colombia
    Colombia knew from the begining in 1974 that we werent prepared to host the world cup, it was never intended to make the world cup.
    Alfonso Lopes Michelsen just pushed the iniciative in a populist move, knowing that he didnt had to deal with the actual responsability of making this thing happen.
     
  4. Metropolitan

    Metropolitan Member+

    Paris Saint Germain
    France
    Sep 5, 2005
    Paris
    Club:
    Paris Saint Germain FC
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    To answer to the OP's question, I believe that what should be learnt from those old days is that attributing the world cup too much ahead in time is not a good idea. Not only we cannot know what will happen to the country but it also takes the voters and bidders out of the present reality.

    4 world cup have been attributed more than a decade before the event:
    - Argentina 78 was attributed in 1966: it has lead to severe controversies about the dictatorship and the abuses in Human rights.
    - Spain 82 was attributed in 1966: FIFA awarded it then to the Francoist regime. By the time it will actually happen, there will be in the country a fortunate democratic revolution and the expansion to 24 teams, which both lead to renegociations in 1978.
    - Colombia 86 was attributed in 1974, we've talked about it here.
    - Qatar 22 was attributed in 2010, you know the followings.

    In my opinion, 6 or 8 years ahead of the event is fine. There's no need for more.
     

Share This Page