When a government tells you there is "no risk", that is precisely the moment to start asking questions. Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, stood before cameras this week and offered exactly that assurance to the international community: every guarantee, she said, that the 2026 FIFA World Cup would proceed safely in her country. The timing could scarcely have been less convenient.
The capture and killing of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho" and the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), triggered a wave of violence across eight Mexican states. Road blockades, arson attacks and security clashes erupted within hours. More than 70 people died in the operation alone. Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state and one of three Mexican host cities for the World Cup alongside Mexico City and Monterrey, sits at the very heart of CJNG territory.
The fundamental question is not whether Mexican officials want the World Cup to succeed. Of course they do. A tournament jointly hosted with the United States and Canada is projected to deliver roughly $US3 billion (approximately $4.2 billion Australian) to Mexico's economy, according to the Mexican Soccer Federation. The question is whether wanting something to be safe is the same as it being safe.
Hugo Alejandro Pérez, a 53-year-old restaurant owner who lives just a few kilometres from the Guadalajara stadium scheduled to host World Cup matches, was inside his home when gunfire and explosions erupted outside. He was already sceptical before this week's events. His neighbourhood lacks reliable water service. Cartel violence has long been a feature of life in the surrounding state. The bloodshed that followed El Mencho's death only hardened his view.
"We have so many problems, and they want to invest in the World Cup? With all the violence, it's not a good idea," Mr Pérez said.
He is not alone. Similar anxieties have simmered in Mexico City. And Jalisco's record is stark: the state was the site of a cartel massacre at a ranch discovered last March, and it faces an ongoing crisis of disappearances that has left thousands of families without answers.
The counter-argument deserves serious consideration. Sheinbaum's government has pursued a more aggressive posture against cartels than her predecessors, and Mr Pérez himself acknowledged this. Jalisco Governor Jesús Pablo Lemus has stated that local FIFA officials have no intention of removing any venues from Mexico, and that all three host sites remain unchanged. FIFA, for its part, told Reuters it was closely monitoring the situation and maintaining contact with federal, state and local authorities.
There is also the broader strategic context. The crackdown on cartels is partly a response to pressure from US President Donald Trump, who has pushed Mexico hard on criminal networks that traffic fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine into American communities. Sheinbaum is balancing domestic political risk against an international relationship that carries enormous economic and diplomatic weight for Mexico.
Yet the academic consensus on the so-called "kingpin strategy" of targeting cartel leaders is deeply cautious. Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution said retaliatory attacks by CJNG were not her primary concern; the greater risk is internal fragmentation. Without a clear line of succession within the cartel, she warned, factional fighting and territorial grabs by rival groups become far more likely. Sheinbaum has herself criticised the kingpin strategy in the past, acknowledging that removing a single leader rarely resolves the underlying conditions that allow cartels to flourish.
For Australian fans, the stakes are not abstract. Football Australia confirmed the Socceroos have been drawn in Group D alongside co-hosts the USA, Paraguay and one of Turkey, Romania, Slovakia or Kosovo. Australian supporters planning to travel to North America for the tournament will be weighing exactly the kind of assurances that officials are now offering about Guadalajara's safety against the images of burning vehicles on its streets.
Portugal's football federation said it was "closely monitoring the delicate situation" in Mexico. Its national team was scheduled to play a friendly against Mexico on March 28 at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, the venue that is set to host the World Cup's opening match on June 11. That fixture is now shadowed by uncertainty.
Strip away the talking points and what remains is a genuine tension between two legitimate interests. Hosting the World Cup matters enormously to Mexico, economically and symbolically. The safety of tens of thousands of visiting supporters matters just as much to the international community and to FIFA itself, which carries both a legal duty of care and a reputational stake in the tournament's success.
Reasonable people can accept that governments make security commitments in good faith while still demanding those commitments be backed by transparent, independent verification rather than assurances delivered from a presidential podium. Mr Pérez put it plainly from his neighbourhood a short drive from the stadium: "Things aren't in good enough shape for foreigners to be coming to Jalisco for an event like this." That view may prove too pessimistic by June. But it is not an unreasonable one, and it deserves to be taken seriously by the officials who are asking the world to trust them. History will judge this moment by whether the planning matches the promises.