As enticements to fix a football match go, it really was right off the scale. Argentina — desperately needing to put four goals past Peru to reach the final of the World Cup they hosted in the summer of 1978 — were alleged to have offered their opponents 35,000 tonnes of grain and the release of $50million for an easy ride.
It did not take long to establish that they would be getting one. They had hit the necessary number after 50 minutes, eventually winning 6-0 against their hapless fellow South Americans, to progress to a showdown against Holland in which Mario Kempes famously saw them home.
Debate about that match in Rosario has raged ever since. Brazil — who were eliminated — are convinced they were cheated. Argentina insist that that Peru, 3-1 winners over Scotland in the first group stage, were simply not very good.
Daniel Passarella cradles the World Cup trophy in 1978 after Argentina’s win over Holland
Now the mystery has come a little closer to being resolved. A new film, screened on Saturday, about the tournament reveals details of a secret ‘emergency’ meeting at the Buenos Aires Sheraton, 48 hours before the match, which doesn’t reflect well on Argentina.
Eight years before Diego Maradona’s Hand of God did for England, it appears key personnel from both camps were ordered to attend the summit. Carlose Ares, a local journalist, says that he was told after the meeting had finished: ‘Don’t worry. Everything will be taken care of.’ He speaks of ‘manoeuvres’.
The Argentina stars whose careers were defined by that tournament insist there were no dirty tricks. Kempes tells filmmakers that talk of a fix is ‘all a lie’ and Ricardo Villa, who would soon join Tottenham, insists that ‘it’s not difficult to score against Peru’. Yet team-mate Leopoldo Luque is not so sure. ‘Maybe Peru were paid but we knew nothing,’ he says.
The indisputable fact is that Argentine dictator General Jorge Videla saw the tournament as a device for bringing legitimacy to his brutal, borderline fascist regime. The new film — Pele, Argentina and the Dictators — is a vivid reminder of how the world looked away, despite human rights abuses which left western Europeans feeling uncomfortable. ‘I’m not keen on the place it’s being played in,’ Brian Clough said of the tournament. Johan Cruyff refused to take part.
Protests in Holland that summer echoed recent calls for an England boycott of the Russia World Cup, which is designed to showcase Vladimir Putin’s autocracy. But the Dutch demands had conviction. The side had to board their flight there in secret, former Holland midfielder Willy van de Kerkhof tells the filmmakers.
Videla — much like Putin — did not seem to have an interest in football until the tournament approached, when he suddenly watched seven matches in a month. He was even prepared to tolerate left-wing manager Cesar Luis Menotti, who refused to dignify him and his regime. Videla knew the meticulous 39-year-old could be a winner.
Mario Kempes scores during Argentina’s controversial 6-0 victory over Peru in Rosario
Kempes netted twice against Peru and finished the 1978 tournament as the top goalscorer
Leopoldo Luque also notched a brace for Argentina at the Estadio Gigante de Arroyito
Second goalscorer Alberto Tarantini weaves his way through the Peruvian defence
Menotti’s preparations began in October 1976, when he persuaded the Argentine football federation to ban the sale of players to foreign clubs. (Kempes, of Valencia, was the only one of the 1978 squad based abroad.)
But there was an inauspicious start to the tournament. The Argentines fell behind to Hungary, though came through to win. Kempes didn’t score at all in the group stage. Though finishing second in their group meant playing the second stage in a smaller stadium at Rosario, the atmosphere there against Poland — whom they beat — was far more passionate. Kempes found his goalscoring touch but also executed an outrageous act of cheating, leaping on the goal line to punch away a Polish header.
A brutal 0-0 draw ensued against Brazil. The definitive history of Argentinian football, Angels With Dirty Faces by Jonathan Wilson, chronicles 17 fouls in the first 10 minutes. That left Argentina needing those goals against Peru.
A huge amount was at stake. Wilson relates how 10 per cent of the Argentine nation’s national budget had been spent on new stadia for the tournament. The film reveals the need to satisfy the telephone needs of the world’s media led to 6,000 Argentines being disconnected. The media centre built remains a national TV headquarters to this day.
Countless conspiracy theories and suspicions stemmed from the 90 minutes that followed. Peru’s goalkeeper, Ramon Quiroga, had been born in Argentina. An anonymous Argentine civil servant later claimed his country had fulfilled a promise to ship grain if Peru rolled over.
A brutal goalless draw against Brazil left Argentina needing to put four goals past Peru
In 2012, former Peruvian senator Genaro Ledesma gave evidence to a Buenos Aires judge that the game had been thrown as part of the ‘Condor Plan’, an agreement between South American dictators to help each other in the 1970s.
But Videla’s visit to the Peru dressing room before kick-off was the most suspicious part. He was accompanied by Henry Kissinger, who had recently concluded his four-year term as US secretary of state. The encounter left the Peruvians feeling worried, as the message to them had been how important a win was to Argentina. Kissinger later said he had ‘no recollection’ of visiting the dressing room.
Against this backdrop, the film’s footage of the match is fascinating, though to the naked eye there is nothing suspicious. Peruvian keeper Quiroga made a string of saves before his team capitulated, which suggests he was not in on any fix.
The blind eye that was turned to Videla’s atrocities was the most shocking element. Buenos Aires’s El Monumental stadium, where Holland were beaten 3-1 after extra-time in the final, was 700m from a concentration camp where many of the 30,000 supposed opponents of the Videla regime who ‘disappeared’ were imprisoned. Many were not seen again.
Ossie Ardiles, who was catapulted to fame by the tournament, is the only member of the squad who admits a sense of guilt about legitimising Videla’s regime. ‘I was university educated,’ he tells the filmmakers. ‘So if there was one player who knew, it was me. I thought (the criticism) was propaganda but it was the truth.’
Argentine president Jorge Videla stands over the World Cup trophy that he craved
The 1970 World Cup, in Mexico, was also won by a South American country in the grip of a military dictatorship. Brazilian dictator Emilio Medici sacked the team’s left-leaning coach Joao Saldanha, installed Mario Zagallo and ensured that the players were sent to a military training school for three months.
Brazil beat Italy 4-1 in the final and, much like the Argentines, Pele and Tostao insist they did not know they were legitimising state violence and false imprisonment.
The Russian state machinery has already gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure success. A system of state-sponsored doping was used to win medals at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and there are question marks over footballers.
But Stanislav Cherchesov’s team have won none of their last six games and could struggle to get out of their group.
Videla was deposed by Roberto Eduardo Viola three years after Daniel Passarella lifted the trophy. But the mystery of the evening of June 21 in Estadio Gigante de Arroyito endures. ‘It’s a bit like the JFK shooting,’ says one professor of Latin American history. ‘Peru is one of the conspiracies that will never be resolved.’
Pele, Argentina and the Dictators is on HISTORY on Sunday night at 7pm, part of the channel’s History of Football season