A History Lesson: The Football War

A History Lesson features a particular part of Footy history that we feel is relevant and timeless. It can feature players, club victories, title wins, goals, important events, etc.


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By Jacen



It has many names. Some include "The Hundred Hours War" and "The Salvador-Honduras War". However, it's most well known name may be La guerra del fútbol, or the "Football War". While this title may be misleading, it seems to be the most widely accepted name for the 4 day war that took place between Honduras and El Salvador back in 1969. Like nearly every war in history, everything began with politics. Immigration from El Salvador to Honduras was becoming a major point of contention between the two nations. Land reform and demographic problems did little else but fan the growing flames. The nation of El Salvador is only 20% the size that Honduras is. Yet by the time of the war, El Salvador's population was double the population of Honduras. The estimated number of Salvadorians living in Honduras in 1969 was a staggering 300,000. About 15,000 of those Salvadorians made up the peasant population in Honduras, yet very little land actually belonged to any of them. Major corporations and individual large landowners held much of the land in Honduras, and the average landowner barely stood a chance. In 1966, the United Fruit Company banded together with many other large companies to create la Federación Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos de Honduras; or The National Federation of Farmers and Livestock-Farmers of Honduras. FENAGH was well known as anti-Salvadoran, and the group put pressure on the Honduran president Lopes Arellano to protect the property rights of the larger landowners. A new land reform law, which was passed in 1967, gave the central government and municipalities a large percentage of the land occupied illegally by Salvadoran immigrants, which was then gifted to native-born Hondurans. Due to most of their land being taken, thousands of Salvadorans, including both temporary harvest workers and longer-term settlers, were displaced and forced to emigrate from Honduras. With nowhere else to go, most returned, beaten and ashamed, to El Salvador.

Yet the worst was to follow. Qualification for the 1970 FIFA World cup was well under way, and on the 8th of June 1969, when the second CONCACAF qualifying round reached the two tumultuous nations, all hell broke loose. The first match, which Honduras won 1 - 0, was marred with fan violence and rioting, while the Salvadorian team, which spent the entire night before being taunted and threatened by a mob as they tried to sleep in their hotel, claimed to have been robbed of the result. Yet the Salvadorian team were not the only ones filled with despair. Amelia Bolaños, an 18 year old Salvadorian girl, committed suicide after the match by shooting herself with her father's pistol. Her death proved to be yet another major catalyst toward the seemingly inevitable military conflict. Amelia, who was now hailed as a martyr by her home nation, had her funeral televised nationally, with not only the Salvadorian national players attending, but even an army honour guard and the president of El Salvador himself were shown walking behind her coffin. The second leg of the qualifier, which took place just one week later on the 15th of June, saw a renewed El Salvador defeat Honduras 3 - 0. Again, the match was marred by even more violence off the pitch, this time being even worse than the first. June 26th brought the third and final match, which took place on the neutral ground of Mexico City, Mexico, and saw El Salvador win 3 - 2 after extra time. Unfortunately, the "Football War" did not end with the games. The real fighting was about to begin.

Mere hours after the match ended, El Salvador dissolved all ties with Honduras, and within the next several days, both countries had their borders attacked. The several clashes between the two countries eventually led to concerted military action. Honduras had the more efficient military, yet it was El Salvador who made the first move. Using civilian passenger planes as makeshift bombers, the Salvadorians struck several strategic locations, including an airport facility at Toncontin, which took Honduras by complete surprise. The Salvadorian army continued their blitz and eventually pushed the Honduran army so far back that 8 cities fell under Salvadorian control, including the Honduran departmental capital of Nueva Ocotepeque. A Honduran national headline which read: "Salvadoran Army Advance Unstoppable", gave credence to the confident talk that El Salvador's army was not only standing up to the much larger Honduran army, but that they were actually winning. Yet, Honduras continued to persevere. As the Salvadorian army headed toward the capital city, Honduras staged an aerial assault of their own, targeting air and oil facilities. While mostly unsuccessful, Honduras' superior air force managed to win back control of the skies for the remainder of the war. El Salvador continued their blistering campaign and despite being a poorer, weaker nation, they managed to keep their military together and assure themselves victory.

Just one day after the conflict began, the OAS met and called for an immediate cease-fire and a withdrawal of El Salvador's forces from Honduras. While El Salvador initially resisted the pressures from the OAS, demanding that Honduras first agree to pay reparations for the previous treatment of Salvadoran citizens and guarantee the safety of those Salvadorans remaining in Honduras, a cease-fire was eventually arranged on the night of 18 July. The actual war lasted only 4 days, but by the end 3000 people, including Amelia Bolaños were dead.

While football was not the actual cause of the war, it certainly exacerbated the conflict more than quite possibly anything else could have at that time. Sadly, even to this day, in some nations, such as Egypt, football rivalry still incites violence, rioting and even death. Footy is, and always will be more entertaining with a good rivalry, yet this war can be viewed as one of the biggest negative examples of how that rivalry can be taken entirely too far.



Jacen Curathers is a writer, editor and co-founder of The Captain's Armblog. He enjoys reading, drinking himself into a stupor and playing as a fake, unrealistically talented version of himself on FIFA 11. He invites readers to email him anytime at thecaptainsarmblog@gmail.com.