Sight Unseen: Mexican Women's Blind Football Defies the State

Mexico is a nation where football borders on a state religion. Polls suggest six out of ten citizens consider themselves fans, predominantly preferring the pitch to any other sporting arena. Yet, beneath this national obsession lies a glaring disparity in who actually gets to play. In September, the Chilangas FC, one of Mexico's first women’s blind football clubs, travels to Brazil for the Copa America. Their journey relies entirely on private determination rather than institutional backing.

The sport itself traces its origins to the 1920s in Spain, emerging initially in schools for visually impaired children. Yet, while the men's game was formally absorbed by the International Blind Sports Federation in 1996, the women's variant remains excluded from the Paralympic Games. This institutional neglect severely restricts the discipline's access to global capital and development.

Sensing a void in the sporting market, coach Wendy del Rio established Chilangas FC in 2020. After seven years with a men's blind football programme in Mexico City, she routinely encountered female athletes asking for a comparable space. The launch, delayed until 2023, highlighted a severe lack of local infrastructure. Today, Mexico boasts a mere six women's blind football teams. Chilangas FC operates without a dedicated pitch, paid staff, or state funding, functioning entirely on the willpower of its participants.

The mechanics of blind football demand highly specific conditions. Matches require an enclosed space with walls that allow the rattling ball to ricochet, creating essential auditory cues for the players. The audience must remain completely silent, while the only sighted participant, the goalkeeper, verbally guides the team alongside players shouting their own coordinates. For months, del Rio has been locked in negotiations with Mexico City's Women's Secretariat, a bureaucratic entity established in 2019, simply to secure an appropriate court.

For the athletes, the pitch offers a rare environment of autonomy. Pau Hernandez, who lost her sight to retinitis pigmentosa, transitioned to the squad after finding the indoor, hand-based sport of goalball insufficient for her competitive drive. Encouraged by Efrain Mora Garcia, president of the Mexican Federation of Sports for the Blind and Visually Impaired, she quickly adapted to the rigorous demands. Alongside twenty-year-old teammate Alexandra Ramirez, Hernandez navigates both the tactical complexities of the game and the physical hazards of Mexico City, where broken pavements and crowded transit systems present daily hurdles for those using white canes.

Societal barriers are equally formidable. Families often discourage women from contact sports due to fears of injury, while traditional domestic expectations persist. Yet, athletes like Hernandez continue to dismantle these presumptions through pure athletic competence. When the Chilangas FC competes in Brazil, they will do so not as beneficiaries of state largesse, but as independent competitors who carved out their own space in a system designed to overlook them.

Written by Sandy van Dongen sandy.vandongen@alpineweekly.com