Growing Pains in World Football

Haiti and Zaire at the 1974 World Cup

Matt Robertshaw — 10 May 2019
 Legacy of Haiti & Zaire at WC 1974:

2012

Tom Dunmore, Encyclopedia of the FIFA World Cup, 2015

Paul Darby, Africa, Football, and FIFA, 2002

 The legacy of the first two black
teams in the World Cup was skewed
by contemporary commentary
grounded in a particular historical
context characterized by European
anxiety over their ebbing centrality in
world football.
By the Numbers
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Welcome (?) to
West Germany
London
bookies
ZAIRE
Montreal Gazette
HAITI
AUSTRALIA
Game 1
Zaire 0–2 Scotland
Game 1: Zaire 0–2 Scotland

Billy Bremner,
Scottish midfielder

Willie Ormonde,
Scottish manager
Game 1: Zaire 0–2 Scotland

Ian Archer,
Sports reporter,
Glasgow Herald
Game 1
Haiti 1–3 Italy
Game 1: Haiti 1–3 Italy
Game 1: Haiti 1–3 Italy
Game 1: Haiti 1–3 Italy
Game 1: Haiti 1–3 Italy
Game 2
Haiti 0–7 Poland
Game 2: Poland 7–0 Haiti
Game 2
Yugoslavia 9–0 Zaire
Game 2: Yugoslavia 9–0 Zaire
Which matches were typical?
Which were flukes?
Was Game 2 “typical”? (Haiti)
• “Enter the Ton Ton Macoutes. Suddenly,
Jean Joseph was dragged out of his
quarters […], beaten, shoved into a taxi,
[…] prior to being flown back the next
morning on a Pan Am jet to Port au
Prince; where Baby Doc Duvalier was
allegedly waiting for him in high
dudgeon."
• “As successful footballers, we’d been
protected from that side of the regime, but
now we saw the dark side. We had a
sleepless night before the game against
Poland, and to be honest, I was only
thinking about Ernst, not the game.” –
Fritz André, Haitian Defender
Was Game 2 “typical”? (Zaire)
• President Mobutu pulled Zaire’s
Yugoslavian coach Blagoje Vidinić from
the game against Yugoslavia, fearing he
was “selling secrets” to his compatriots.
• “…we had the erroneous belief that we
would be returning from the World Cup
as millionaires. […] Before the
Yugoslavia match we learnt that we were
not going to be paid, so we refused to
play.” –Illunga Mwepu, Zairian Defender

President Mobutu
Responses
Geoffrey Greene,
Times Football
Correspondant,
22 June 1974
Historic WC crushing defeats:
Context of WC74
June 1974: A turning point in world soccer

11 June (2 days before WC74):

Brazilian João Havelange elected as FIFA president
• First non-European to hold the post.
• Vigorous campaign esp. in Africa.
• 39 African member nations a critical voting bloc
• Promised a massive football development program in Africa
• Promised more World Cup finals spots for Africa
• Major threat to European domination of world soccer
 The Times,
23 May 1974
Context of WC74:
The Great Debate

“…One of the major means by which the standard of the

game could be developed is the creation of incentives, the
best of which as far as Asian and African teams are
concerned would be to give them the opportunity for more
than one team to qualify to [the] World Cup Finals .”
–Delegate from Kuwait, 1978 FIFA Congress
 Context of WC74:
The Great Debate

Franz Beckenbauer,
West German Captain

“I think the competition should be

for the best 16 teams, no matter
where they come from, and we
should forget these arguments
about fostering the game in little
countries by encouraging them to
Louis Wouters, play.”
President, Belgian Football Association
Giacinto Faccetti, Italian Captain
The memory of Zaire and
Haiti’s performance at the
1974 World Cup was a
casualty of European
attempts to protect their
privileged position in
World Football.
 More broadly, European backlash
against the Haitian and Zairian sides
at WC74 can be interpreted an
expression of the continent’s crisis
of identity following decolonization.
Haitian
& Zairian
Players
Post-1974