sports
Families in Guadalajara Post World Cup-Themed Missing-Person Posters to Reach Tournament Visitors
Search groups in Jalisco replaced regular flyers with hundreds of soccer-sticker designs showing the faces of the disappeared. The campaign coincides with preparations for the 2026 World Cup matches hosted in the city.
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Families in Guadalajara have taped hundreds of World Cup-themed posters of missing relatives onto concrete benches, utility poles and walls across downtown. ” The initiative was started this month by Luz de Esperanza, a search collective in Jalisco state.
Members replaced many of the group’s regular missing-person flyers with the new designs to reach the tens of thousands of visitors expected for the 2026 World Cup matches hosted in the city.
One poster shows Christian Emmanuel Rivera, who disappeared in August 2023. Another depicts Jaime Adrián Ramírez, missing since September 2020. María de Jesús Solís, 57, whose son Jaime Adrián disappeared nearly six years ago, said the images are meant to remind residents and visitors that the men are absent from their families.
Jalisco leads Mexico in disappearances, with more than 16,000 people listed as missing in the state registry. Mexico as a whole has 135,000 missing people, according to the figures cited by the families. Nearly every Sunday since 2021, Luz de Esperanza members have spread across Guadalajara carrying stacks of missing-person posters.
Other search collectives have contacted the group about using the same World Cup design. Solís said the campaign also reflects frustration over government spending. “We’re not against the World Cup,” she said.
She noted that authorities invested millions preparing Guadalajara for the tournament while search collectives pay for their own water, food and transportation. On a recent morning, Solís and Guadalupe Rivera joined other Luz de Esperanza members at an abandoned property on the outskirts of Guadalajara. Some members carried metal probes to test the ground for clandestine graves.
Rivera pressed a steel rod into the soil while others inspected dark rooms and a backyard littered with garbage. Rivera’s son, Christian Emmanuel, disappeared nearly three years ago. She joined the collective almost immediately after his disappearance.
