Soccer-Spanish king to attend a World Cup match in Mexico

MADRID/MEXICO CITY - Spanish King Felipe VI will visit Mexico to attend a World Cup match, the Mexican president said on Monday, in a sign of warming ties after recent tensions between the two countries over colonial-era abuses.

President Claudia Sheinbaum did not invite King Felipe, who is head of state in Spain, to her 2024 inauguration after the monarch declined to apologise for wrongs committed during the Spanish conquest.

However, after he acknowledged colonial abuses in March, saying Spain could not feel proud about them, she extended an invitation to the World Cup.

"It is a completely different moment," Sheinbaum told reporters, confirming the visit.

"With the exception of a few who still defend (Spanish conquistador) Hernan Cortes... the vast majority of the Spanish people do recognise that there was a period of abuses," she added.

Madrid's conservative regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso cut short a 10-day trip to Mexico earlier this month after provoking tensions by paying homage to Cortes during the visit and saying that Spain had brought civilisation, hope and joy to the Americas.

In the 16th to 18th centuries, Spain ruled one of the world's largest ever empires that included much of Latin America, where it practiced forced labour, land expropriation and violence against Indigenous peoples.

Spain will face Uruguay in their third Group H match on June 26 in Guadalajara, with Cape Verde and Saudi Arabia completing the group. It will mark Spain's first game on Mexican soil in a tournament also being hosted by the United States and Canada.

(Reporting by Emma Pinedo and Aida Pelaez-Fernandez; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Christian Radnedge)

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.

This story was originally published May 18, 2026 at 12:09 PM.