The beautiful game that brings out the ugly in us

There were 5.95 billion engagements on social media, with a cumulative reach of 262 billion across all platforms.

The final, held at the Lusail Stadium, attracted 88,966 spectators, and nearly 1.5 billion people around the world watched the duel between Argentina and France.

Indeed, the Fifa World Cup is the biggest single sporting event on the planet, and the 2026 finals in the USA, Canada, and Mexico promise to be even bigger, with a record 48 nations participating.

Small wonder that one of the co-hosts, Mexico, mulled cutting its school year by 40 days to accommodate the World Cup. The country contemplated starting its school holidays more than a month sooner than scheduled due to the heat and the football bonanza.

But alas, on Monday, Mexico’s education authorities reversed the proposal and decided to keep the 2025-2026 school calendar unchanged.

Shorten school calendar

Under the proposed schedule, the academic year would end on June 5 instead of July 15. Schools would start the new academic year on August 31, one day earlier than in 2025.

You would have expected everybody in Mexico to welcome this development. Well, at least the teachers, the parents, the school workers and, especially, the students.

But there was push back.

“Using the Fifa World Cup as an argument to shorten the school calendar is unacceptable. Our children’s education cannot be sacrificed for a sporting event that will take place in just three of the country’s 2,500 municipalities,” Mexico’s National Union of Parent Associations said in a statement.

Mexico’s teachers’ union even threatened to strike during the World Cup opening match pitting the hosts against South Africa.

I don’t understand these Mexicans. That they love football is not in doubt. They hosted the bloody tournament in 1970 and in 1986. They will become the first nation to host three World Cups, albeit jointly.

Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara will host 13 World Cup matches in June and July. Who would want schools to be open at this time in Mexico? Mexico had better take heed of history.

Students on the rampage

An AFP report 15 years ago details how students in a leading institution in Sri Lanka, the University of Engineering and Technology in the capital Dhaka, rioted demanding time off to watch the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Five people were injured in that commotion as the university was forced to shut down, a week earlier than scheduled. The same university experienced similar disturbances in 2006 over the same demands.

Irate fans in Bangladesh, a nation that has never qualified for the World Cup, damaged vehicles and attacked electricity distribution centres when a power cut hit television coverage of a match during the 2010 World Cup. I remember reading how the authorities prevailed on some factories in Dhaka to shut down during games to reduce power blackouts and risk of unrest. These Bangla guys are something else.

And right here at home, students at Amasagi Mixed Secondary School in Kisii County, went on the rampage, destroying several buildings after they were denied the chance to watch 2006 World Cup matches, so says an Al Jazeera report.

I remember how, as a secondary school student in 1990, we warned our school administration in no uncertain terms, dare deny us World Cup TV time and you will see...

There is something about the beautiful game that can turn humans ugly.

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