Bafana Bafana World Cup ‘26: Mexico deploys 100,000 troops

Bafana Bafana will open the 2026 World Cup against Mexico at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca on 11 June, a repeat of the 2010 opener at Soccer City in Johannesburg. The symmetry is neat and tidy. The circumstances, not so much. 

Mexico has deployed nearly 100,000 security personnel across its three host cities after cartel violence tore through Guadalajara following the killing of drug lord Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, in a military raid in February 2026. 

When reporters asked about World Cup safety, an unflappable President Claudia Sheinbaum guaranteed, “All of them.”

Bafana Bafana World Cup 2026 opener and Plan Kukulkan

Little wonder that Sheinbaum seemed so composed given the less-than-ideal cartel brouhaha. Mexico’s security operation, branded Plan Kukulkan after the Mayan serpent deity, includes 20,000 soldiers and National Guard troops, 55,000 police officers, 2,500 military vehicles, 24 aircraft, anti-drone systems, and three joint task forces stationed in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey.

Mexico's nearly 100,000-strong World Cup security deployment would include 20,000 military personnel, including National Guard troops, and 55,000 police officers, as well as members of private security companies. Guadalajara saw much drug cartel violence.https://t.co/umIUSor9hY

— SoccerAmerica (@socceramerica) March 8, 2026

Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said the plan coordinated more than 20 federal agencies alongside state and municipal authorities. FIFA President Gianni Infantino phoned Sheinbaum within days to express “full confidence.” Of course, he too told reporters he was “very calm.” I’ll have what they’re having. 

But a single raid cannot dismantle the cartel El Mencho built over 15 years. Following his death, cartel loyalists erected burning blockades across 20 Mexican states and killed more than two dozen National Guard members in retaliatory firefights.

At Guadalajara International Airport, one of the tournament’s host venues, passengers hit the floor after a false shooting report circulated on social media.

South Africa’s 2010 stadiums: the bill that never stopped

South Africans watching this spectacle may feel a familiar ache. Organisers sold the 2010 World Cup as a redemption tournament, proof-positive that post-apartheid democracy had arrived. The national government spent over R30 billion hosting it. 

Five of the six new stadiums built for the occasion needed taxpayer support within years of the final whistle. “Durban’s 70,000-seat Moses Mabhida Stadium posted a loss of R34.6 million in 2013 alone. The city built this massive venue right next to an existing 55,000-seat ground that it ultimately left unused.”

Cumulative losses exceeded R200 million. Cape Town Stadium haemorrhages roughly R40 million per year. Some Cape Town residents have even demanded the stadium’s demolition. The stadium frequently operates at a loss. Reports have shown that the city has, at times, spent over R55 million per year on its maintenance and upkeep.

Then there was the construction cartel debacle. South Africa’s Competition Commission found that the country’s largest construction firms had agreed to share contracts with guaranteed profit margins of 17.5 percent, against an industry norm of 3.5 percent. The corrupt inflation of stadium costs was documented in formal contracts kept secret until a judge ordered them opened. 

A R200 million fine was levied. The stadiums remained. Authorities provided no mechanism for return to the communities they cleared from FIFA’s commercial exclusion zones.

Guarantee everything, account for nothing

The pattern is consistent. A host government’s institutional credibility becomes structurally tied to FIFA’s satisfaction. Accountability runs upward to Zurich, not downward to the people living in the host cities. In 2010, “FIFA Zones” were demarcated up to two kilometres around stadiums. Within those zones, only FIFA’s corporate partners, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Budweiser, and Visa, could operate. The informal economy, a massive part of South African culture, was effectively banned from these zones.

Thousands of street vendors who usually operated near stadiums were moved to “designated trading areas” far from the high-foot-traffic zones, leading to significant protests and loss of income.

In addition, new regulations legally barred informal traders who had worked those spaces for years Violations carried fines of up to R10,000 or six months’ imprisonment. The UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing documented 8,000 people removed from the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Cape Town, relocated to temporary sites “without prior notice, provision of adequate alternative housing or compensation.”

Mexico is now running the same template under worse conditions. Consequently, the government launched Plan Kukulkan as a military operation devoid of legislative debate or civilian oversight. It exists because FIFA requires security guarantees as a contractual condition of hosting, and because Sheinbaum’s government has staked its international credibility on the tournament’s success. 

The accountability runs to FIFA. Not to the residents of Guadalajara, where more than 12,575 people are reported missing.

Bafana Bafana at the Azteca

Hugo Broos and his squad have set up their training base in Pachuca, 85 kilometres from Mexico City, specifically to acclimatise to the altitude. Broos has called the opening fixture “a special match.” He was at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico as a player with Belgium. He knows the terrain.

The football symmetry is neat. On 11 June 2010, Siphiwe Tshabalala scored that goal against Mexico in Johannesburg, “a goal for all of Africa,” as Peter Drury called it. On 11 June 2026, the fixture reverses: Mexico hosts, South Africa visits. Mexico has never won a World Cup opening match. Bafana Bafana has missed every World Cup since their first-round exit as 2010 host nation.

The political symmetry is less comfy. Both nations bent their democratic institutions around FIFA’s commercial requirements. In 2010, South Africa cleared informal settlements, freezing its constitution in exclusion zones. 

Mexico in 2026 is deploying its army to sanitise three cities while presiding over a cartel succession crisis of uncertain trajectory. Within the immediate perimeter of the stadium, only FIFA’s official partners are permitted to operate. This excludes the thousands of informal “tianguis” (market) traders and street food vendors who traditionally occupy these high-traffic areas during Chivas matches.

Much like the 2010 “designated trading areas,” local authorities in Guadalajara have begun identifying relocation zones for vendors. However, these are often located far from the main fan thoroughfares, leading to fears of a significant loss in daily income for family-owned businesses.

The World Cup machine vs. local reality

The machine is good at producing a successful tournament. Matches will proceed on schedule. The stadiums—eleven American cities, three Mexican, two Canadian—will fill. Broadcast audiences will number in the billions. FIFA will report revenues and distribute them according to its internal formulas, which have historically been generous to FIFA and its member associations and considerably less generous to host municipalities. Fat sponsors will leave satisfied. 

And then the real accounting will begin. Security contracts will expire. Plan Kukulkan will demobilize. Exclusion zones around Mexican stadiums, the details of which have not yet been made public, but whose contractual structure follows the same FIFA host city agreement template that South Africa signed in 2010, will dissolve. 

Military operations in Tapalpa failed to resolve the cartel succession question, and ninety days of heavy troop deployment will not solve it either. Similarly, the informal economy that once occupied the perimeter of Estadio Akron in Guadalajara will attempt to reconstitute itself. And Washington will announce the umpteenth consecutive month of zero releases at its Southern border. 

Sheinbaum said guarantees are in place. The FIFA fun is canned and ready. She’s probably right. For the duration of the tournament anyway.

The question that coverage of events of this scale almost never asks, however, is whom these guarantees apply to? And for how long? Spoiler alert: if South Africa is anything to go by, it’s for visitors. For about a month. And then it’s back to normal if you’re lucky.