1978

In 1978, to the astonishment of Amnesty International and other Human Rights organizations, the eleventh World Cup was staged in Argentina. A ruthless military dictatorship led by President Jorge Videla brutalized, tortured and murdered thousands of their own people to stay in power. Under the guise of the Beautiful Game, this cesspit of Generals would attempt to achieve respectability in the World’s eye. But for this to succeed victory had to be forthcoming. At any price. So, they decided to fix it 1978 tells the story of a young Scottish journalist Paul Mackenzie, who travels to Argentina, utterly oblivious to what is really going on. He is interested only in the football, beer and women. A meeting with Argentine journalist Sebastian Gomez and his sister Maria, who Mackenzie falls in love with, opens his eyes to the vicious reality of the Mundial. In time, Mackenzie, along with Sebastian Gomez and a wizened, old Scottish hack Hugh Morley, find themselves involved in the biggest sporting fix in history. The Argentina-Peru match, when the host nation needed four goals to ensure qualification for the final at Brazil’s expense. It is one involving a frightening host of characters. Some famous such as Henry Kissinger, others simply infamous as the CIA, Argentine and Peruvian governments, and a Colombian drug cartel, all conspiring together for their own means. Anyone deemed a danger to it failing, risked paying the ultimate price, and it is the journalists who are caught in the storm’s eye-with bitter and tragic consequences. The French Poet Charles Baudelaire once claimed, ‘The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.’ Well, for a period during the Seventies, he did exist and had pitched his tent in Argentina.