A big one protest outside Estadio Azteca in Mexico adding even more chaos to the start of WC. Riot police were forced to step in as the large crowd of protesters marched towards the football stadium.
Fortunately, the mob eventually dispersed before the situation got out of hand.
The root of this latest protest is twofold. Both parties (which are one in the same) chose to use the international soccer tournament as a way to increase visibility towards their respective causes.
Estadio Azteca will host the first match of the World Cup.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup will feature 16 stadiums in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Toronto and Vancouver will serve as host cities in Canada. Kansas City, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, New Jersey, Seattle and San Francisco will serve as host cities in the United States. Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey will serve as host cities in Mexico.
The tournament starts on Thursday afternoon at 3 p.m. ET. Mexico will play South Africa in the first match of the World Cup at the historic Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.
Estadio Azteca was built in 1966. It sits at an elevation of 7,200 feet with a maximum capacity of 87,523. It is the only stadium in history to host three different editions of the World Cup. The stadium will also host two other group stage matches, a round of 32 match and a round of 16 match.
The teachers are on strike.
Protesters shut down the main road leading to the Estadio Azteca all day on Tuesday, just two days before the first match. It was double.
The largest group of protesters was affiliated with the CNTE teachers’ union. The Mexican government passed a law in 2007 that dismantled a solidarity-based pension system for public employees. That system was then replaced with individual, privately managed accounts. Teachers effectively lost their guaranteed retirement funds overnight.
Each of the last two presidents-elect, including current President Claudia Sheinbaum, campaigned to overturn this law. The newly elected president did not follow through on his promise, so the CNTE had enough.
They took to the streets on March 18, 2026. Thousands of teachers marched through the capital to demand a repeal. The blocked highways, vandalized monuments, overturned WC statuesand even broke into a government building.
The protest has not stopped for three months and the CNTE called for a formal strike on 1 June. Many of the protesters have been docked thousands of pesos a day. They don’t care. The reason is too important.
Protests continue in Mexico City.
Another side of the protest is focused on the so-called “disappearance” of local residents. These individuals are said to have been killed and/or kidnapped by Mexican authorities and/or criminal gangs. The CNTE works together with the other activists. Their overall goal is to draw attention to government corruption.
More specifically, protesters want to remove the “cosmetic image” of the World Cup. Everything is not as perfect as the government wants it to be during the tournament.
They even set up a tent city in a very busy part of Mexico City. They’re not going anywhere!
President Claudia Sheinbaum referred to the protest as a provocation. “As if to say, ‘Look how bad the situation is in Mexico,'” she said. “They want to make it seem like there’s a lot of social unrest in Mexico, and that’s not true.”
And now, with the World Cup coming to Mexico City on Thursday, tensions are rising. The protest completely took over the main road to the Estadio Azteca on Tuesday, but a police blockade prevented the protesters from reaching the stadium.
Local residents are calling for a complete boycott of the tournament.
It will be interesting to see how the authorities choose to approach the protest on Wednesday and Thursday as the first game of the World Cup approaches. Will it be met with violence? Will it be held to a specific part of town? What happens if the march continues down the main road to the Estadio Azteca while soccer fans also try to get to the stadium? Follow along.
