Eduardo Galeano interpreted the Soccer World Cup as the largest global market of all, where the ball is the only language understood by the community, and we can add: whoever has it on their field sets the pace of the game.
It is a universal language with the ability to transform any city into a small Babel – where the voices of the entire planet meet -, turning it into the navel of the world, an idea perfectly defined and understood in the 2026 World Cup organization project proposed by the Head of Government of Mexico City, Clara Brugada, and the Committee made up of public servants, Mexican soccer executives and businessmen.
The ball, for the first time in the history of the World Cup, will be in three countries, in a sort of sports TMEC in which Mexico, the United States and Canada will share not only commercial but also sporting interests. A great globalized football economy, in paraphrase of the Uruguayan journalist and writer.
In the national capital, the Brugada team has already started the game. The expectation is high: 5 million tourists in CDMX alone, a third more than the average annual volume, in a city recognized worldwide, according to the Secretary of Tourism, Alejandra Fraustro, as the first in cultural consumption, the fourth in gastronomy or the sixth best to visit.
For a country where tourism represents more than 8 percent of GDP, this increase in the flow of visitors is no small detail. Let the ball roll in the economic, tourist and, of course, political fields. The strategy lies in the executive capacity of the team to plan all actions in mobility, security and infrastructure.
In 1986—the second World Cup in Mexico, after 1970—we witnessed the hand of God, now we appreciate the soccer utopia, the epicenter of passion and the ancestral connection with the ball game from more than three thousand years ago.
It’s not just about being a friendly host, but about taking advantage of the event to boost its economic and tourist importance on a global scale. The most conservative estimates indicate a spill of 11 billion dollars for the host cities. In CMDX it could be between 600 and 800 million dollars, plus the projection of the winning team.
Mexico City has a golden opportunity to consolidate its status as one of the world’s leading capitals. It is not just about filling stadiums, but about showing its ability to organize global events and offer experiences beyond the game.
Contact:
Salvador Guerrero Chiprés is General Coordinator of the Command, Control, Computing, Communications and Citizen Contact Center (C5) of Mexico City.
www.c5.cdmx.gob.mx
Twitter: @C5_CDMX
The opinions expressed are solely the responsibility of their authors and are completely independent of the position and editorial line of Forbes Mexico.
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