#6 When football became a war
Pele once dubbed football as the beautiful game. While football certainly divides opinions, it is one of the very few things that allows people to momentarily forget about the real problems of the world. However, when football becomes the cause of one of the greatest real problems, it is a truly depressing sight.
In 1969, during a World Cup qualifier game in Honduras, the hosts beat El Salvador 1-0, thanks to a last-minute goal. This prompted the fans in the stadium to go wild as fights broke out with the stadium being torched in the end.
The media of both the nations continued the friction and furthered the animosity by abusing each other in their respective outlets. The following leg was played in El Salvador and things went over the top when the hotel where the Honduras team were staying was torched during the dark of night.
Luckily, the players managed to escape unscathed but were left mentally disoriented by the event. Obviously, the away side lost the encounter and once again chaos ensued as cars were set on fire in the streets, shop windows were broken… such was the brutality that the hospitals set new attendance records.
But things went completely out of hand on July 14th, 1969, when the military got involved and a full-fledged war between the two countries took place. The war began after the Salvadoran Air Force bombed within the Honduras borders. They also launched full-scale foot attack along the main road connecting the two nations.
Indeed, the Salvadorans were out for blood and would have spilled a lot more had they not run out of fuel and ammunition. After 100 hours of blood and warcry, 6000 people lost their lives, 12000 were wounded and 50000 lost their homes.
The root of this war was the massive deportation of Salvadoran immigrants––who left their nation about a decade ago due to lack of living land––from Honduras. The tensions were burning inside and it took a football match to add fuel to it; something that can never be forgotten.
