{"id":488441,"date":"2026-06-12T00:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/488441\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T00:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:54:09","slug":"petrol-bombs-and-bricks-hurled-at-mexican-police-during-pre-match-unrest-at-azteca-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/488441\/","title":{"rendered":"Petrol bombs and bricks hurled at Mexican police during pre-match unrest at Azteca | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mexico\u2019s opening World Cup<\/a> victory party was somewhat tarnished by violent clashes outside the Azteca Stadium just before kick-off as ticketless fans and protesters attempted to gain access.<\/p>\n

Rocks and bottles were thrown at police outside gate eight, with local media reporting that dozens of arrests were made as a result. While Mexico City police have been grappling with protests from teachers, retired judges and families of the country\u2019s 130,000 disappeared<\/a> all week in the buildup to the tournament, the disorder at the stadium did not appear to be politically motivated.<\/p>\n

A group of hooded men appeared intent on charging the gate \u2013 hurling bricks, petrol bombs and other missiles, which led to several police officers requiring medical treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cNearly 200 hooded individuals broke away from two groups of around 800 protesters, but the situation was brought under control by the Metropolitan police,\u201d a spokesperson for the secretary of citizen security in Mexico<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

At least five different protest groups had converged on the stadium despite road closures for 2 miles around the perimeter, but fears that they may force the kick-off to be delayed proved unfounded.<\/p>\n

A Fifa Fanfest event at the city\u2019s central Z\u00f3calo square also took place as planned despite attempts from protest groups to get the gatherng cancelled.<\/p>\n

A mix of political protesters and ticketless fans clashed with police outside the stadium. Photograph: Quetzalli Nicte-Ha\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, did not attend the game as she gave her ticket away to a 21-year-old lottery winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mexico\u2019s opening World Cup victory party was somewhat tarnished by violent clashes outside the Azteca Stadium just before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-488441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}