The Football War of 1969

by Read Listen Learn

The Football War of 1969

Football should bring countries and people together, but it isn't always like that: Honduras and El Salvador are neighbouring countries in Central America. Although they are both small, Honduras is five times bigger than El Salvador. However, El Salvador has double the population of Honduras.

In 1969, these two countries played some football matches in the qualifying rounds of the 1970 World Cup. The two groups of fans had serious fights at these matches. The last match, on 26th June 1969, was in Mexico City and El Salvador won 3 - 2 after extra time. Although they won, El Salvador immediately bombed Honduras from the air and invaded the country on the ground.

After four days of fighting, the Pope made peace between the two countries. El Salvador clearly won the war and occupied large areas of Honduras, including the capital, Tegucigalpa. The world called it the 'Football War' and thought it showed how crazy Latin Americans could be about the game. However, the real causes were older and more serious: El Salvador was small with a big population and looked jealously at all the land in Honduras. In fact, many Salvadorans simply moved to Honduras, where they were 20% of the population in the countryside. This was not popular with many Hondurans.

The two countries made peace but do not like the world to remember the football match or the football war. Both the Salvadorans and the Hondurans knew it was about much more than that.