Mexico City opens biggest World Cup amid protests and heavy security

Global celebration met a wall of police at Estadio Azteca as Mexico City opened the biggest World Cup in history under heavy security and visible protest. Law enforcement officers held back demonstrators while fans in dark green Mexico colors streamed toward the stadium for Mexico’s opening match against South Africa and the tournament’s opening ceremony.

The tension around the venue reflected more than a single-day security operation. The National Coordinator of Education Workers, known as CNTE, one of Mexico’s most combative dissident teachers’ unions, had threatened protests, road blockades and a possible national strike after rejecting the government’s 9% salary increase and demanding higher wages and changes to pension law. Ahead of the opener, protesters blocked an avenue leading to Estadio Azteca for hours, forcing authorities to deploy large security forces around the stadium and across the capital.

President Claudia Sheinbaum called the protests a “provocation” and said they were meant to create the impression of mass social turmoil. She said her government would keep prioritizing dialogue and avoid repression, a posture that underscored the political sensitivity of staging a seamless global spectacle in a city already strained by labor unrest.

Mexico City’s World Cup plans were also being complicated by last-minute construction work and transit disruptions. Officials even weighed whether the city could safely host its free fan festival on opening night, after a teachers’ union protest camp blocked access to the plaza. The threat to public gathering space showed how quickly a sports celebration can become a fight over who gets to occupy the city.

The scene around the Azteca mixed spectacle and unease. Mariachi costumes, trumpets and a sea of dark green supporters framed pre-Hispanic-themed opening festivities, but the backdrop was an unusually fortified capital where security decisions were inseparable from questions about civil liberties, labor rights and the cost of presenting order to the world.

The 2026 tournament is the first 48-team World Cup, making it the largest in history and one of the most complex events FIFA has ever staged. In Mexico City, that scale was visible not only in the ceremony and the crowds, but in the barricades, the blocked streets and the uneasy balance between civic pride and public protest.