In the shadow of Mexico City’s stadium, a water fight aims for the World Cup
Behind the wall and across from the Active 7 of the Azteca Stadium of AZTECA, you live in water with a blue pipium coming out of the ground that threatens to face the preparations for the third visit of the World Cup.
The source was created by the TeleVisa Group, which places the Ollamani Group as the owner of the Azteca Stadium, the owner of the FIFA 2026 World Cup World’s Orland June.
Televisa is Mexico’s National Media Conglomerate and holds the local broadcast rights for the national soccer tournament.
The stadium is also located in the southern part of the city of Mexico on the land that the Federal Government issued to the people of Santa úrsula Coapas, the place established by the teztec and the establishment of tenochtitlan, the Spanish invasion that built the city of Mexico.
Large swaths of the public lands of Santa úrsula Coapa were taken for homes and the homes were demolished to make way for the center of the stadium in 1962.
Rubén Ramírez says he remembers his grandfather telling him that he could hear “the roar of bulldozer motors” that startled the family awake in September 1962 as the construction of the family began.
Ramírez, who leads Santa úrsula Coapa, said his grandfather chased him and his brother upstairs, the youngest in the family, and ran away from home.
The fight to secure a safe and consistent public water supply is the latest phase in his community’s long struggle, he said.
“We’ve had two World Cups, and they’ve never benefited people,” Ramirez said. “Now, the struggle is over the water.”
To steal the world’s attention
The Azteca Stadium, to be called the Mexico City Stadium the following year, was where the famous Argentine star Diego Maradona played
But the beautification and renovation projects preceded by these international events have done little to change the critical infrastructure problems facing a society struggling with old food.
Now, the residents of Santa úrsula Coapa are trying to bring more local and international attention to those issues by holding weekly events and meetings in the underpass near the stadium.
They want The Mexican Federal Government has tapped well into the well from Telvusa and used it to provide a safe public water supply. They also call on Mexico City to finally improve the local water infrastructure to provide the public with fresh water.
As part of their protests, coca-colas with Christmas cookie heads were painted twice with slogans such as, “There are no clean sports in the occupied lands” and “television is stealing our water.”
Another meeting is scheduled for Sunday.
Ramirez says that if the government continues to ignore the demands of the residents, the protests against the World Cup will increase.
“We have a plan, and we will pay them in the same coin,” Ramírez said.
“So the world doesn’t know about the actions they do and how they trample on the rights of the poorest and most vulnerable people.”
Water twice a week
The remaining territory of Santa Ursula, called Pueblo de Santa úrsula Coapa, includes 65 hectares and a population of 10,800 people gathered around the stadium.
The hulking concrete facade of the stadium that approaches the street from the home of María Estela Alejandro. He escapes to a small restaurant under his residence, which sits on the side of the road where about 50 other families live.
The occasional water cut forces him to close the shop. When the water runs, it trickles down into his restaurant, something he says is amazing since the Cup-related creation began in the world.
Washing dishes need to fill many dishes with water, so you don’t waste a drop.
“It’s ridiculous that a company can own water so well,” he said.
“Water is people.”
During Mwakhe Santa úrsula, Norma Piñón Pérez says she has been facing a water shortage for 12 years. The term “Pedregal” refers to the volcanic rock that forms the base of the area.
The first time there was a shortage, Piñón Pérez went without tap water for three months. Now, water only flows through the pipes on Mondays and Tuesdays, he said. His family of nine depends on an extensive system in which they have built themselves water barrels connected to a well that fills them for two days.
“We learned to take care of our water,” he said.
Mexico City’s AZteca Stadium has its own, but people who live around it can go days without water. jbge’s Jerge Barrera talks to the people of Santa úrsula Coarame who fear the 2026 World Cup will put more pressure on water.
Attracting the mayor, the president
The debate at the source reached the desk of the Mayor of Mexico City Clara Brugada. During the Champions League Cup last week, Brugada, on stage with President Claudia Sheinbaum, said that “the source of the stadium” was now “in the hands” of the city.
The next day, residents from the Pueblo de Santa úrsula Coapa and nearby cakes attended a meeting with Mexico City officials where representatives of the City said they had no information about the transfer of the public bar, said Ramírez.
Instead, officials introduced plans to build a rain garden by the underpass that has been the focus of recent protests, according to a cellphone video of the meeting shared with CBC News.
“We are sure they will not solve anything,” said Guadalupe Castillo Martínez, from Pueblo de Santa úrsula Coapa Coapa.
The community also appealed to Sheinbaum himself. In a letter filed this week on behalf of the community and the local neighborhood association, Ramirez asked the President to intervene, saying that his community lives at the mercy of televisa as long as the company controls the water source.
The agreement between it, the federal government and the city allows the company to withdraw the agreement at any time, he wrote.
“This could affect the water supply and security of the Pueblo de Santa úrsula Coapa and the nearby bakeries,” the letter said.
In the letter, Ramirez argued that the service was provided by televisa without consulting the residents, he said, it was a violation of indigenous rights set forth in Mexican law and therefore should be canceled.
“We are in the Anteroom of social acceptance,” Ramirez said: “‘ Ramirez said of the social struggle in an interview with CBC. “Not because we want it, but because the system forces us.
“Money does not guarantee your culture, your well-being, your future. We do this for generations to come, because it is our sons, our daughters.”
It depends on the sources
More than half of Mexico’s drinking water system depends on water. Neighbors around the Azteca field intune almost exclusively to water drawn from wells stolen from oil, said Adolfo Lara vásquez, a researcher and retired reclamation scientist who has studied the water issue for years.
He says most of the comment systems in the area – due to natural flow and planning decisions by the city – divert water away from the curtains around the stadiums in the nearby areas, to feed the condo towers and commercial developments.
Lara Vásquez provided CBC news with a city document that shows most of the areas around the Azteca Stadium are facing water. However, the city had allowed TeleVisa in 2019 to take hold as part of a planned mega development linked to the stadium in an area with construction restrictions due to water shortages due to water shortages due to water shortages.
“We’re getting this well within the red zone,” he said.
The development was unveiled in 2021 when Sheinbaum was Mayor of Mexico City. It first got permission to get the land accepted from the city official who ended up serving a year in prison for fraud.
The now-cancelled project, once released as part of the World Cup renovation of the stadium, met with fierce local opposition driven by fears that it would completely eliminate water supply and turbo-Cark.
Lara Vásquez said she and others remain concerned TeleVisa, or one of its corporate creations, could revive the project with money paid for by the World Cup. The public push for pospropetrid caused by the company is partly because they want to prevent that, he said.
“They have everything in place,” he said. “They can start over at any time.”
When Televisa first acquired the rights to the well in 2019, it agreed to use only 20 percent of the output and direct the remaining 80 percent to the city’s drinking water system.
An additional agreement between Tezevasa, the city of Mexico and the Federal Government of Mexico, they signed this last May, and received by the organization to supply all the water to the city from 2027- when TeleVisa’s license is set to expire.
Televisa did not directly respond to questions from CBC News. Instead, the Ollamani group, a company created by Televisa in 2024 to take ownership of the stadium, as well as its casino operations and publishing arms, told CBC News that the well is investigating water in the city’s system from 2023.
Ollamani Group said in an emailed statement there were no plans to restart the project.
