Is Mexican domestic football under pressure and in danger? Perhaps the 'superleague-isation' with the MLS can help!

Hello! Welcome back to?PITCHSIDE MONITOR,?your one stop guide to club management.?This week we will:

• Take a closer look at football in Mexico
• Hear from Severiano Garcia Ruiz , VP of Football at Atlético de San Luis
• Analyse the TV rights deal in Mexican football

First up, is our section on club management.

In March, we started a special series in our newsletter aimed at exploring the state of the game in the three countries that will be hosting the next?FIFA?World Cup in 2026. In this week's edition, we turn our eyes to Mexico, bringing you all the lowdowns on Mexican football.

Interestingly, in 2026, Mexico will become the only country to have hosted the biggest international football tournament three times; and arguably its first World Cup in 1970 was one that heralded a new dawn for football industry development; with the enhanced broadcasting capabilities and commercial opportunities it brought to the game. Despite its tight links with the World Cup, including a notable first like the introduction of red and yellow cards to indicate cautions and sendings off, as well as some iconic scenes in the history of football such as Brazil’s wonderful team goal in 1970, or the two sides of Diego Maradona’s genius against England in 1986, Mexico’s own team’s success in this competition has been rather conspicuous by its absence. Despite being almost ever-present in these final tournaments, having missed just 5 editions in total and sitting only behind Brazil, Germany, Italy and Argentina in terms of participations, Mexico’s national team has never progressed beyond the Quarter-Final stage, and its most typical performance has been either a group stage or 1/8th final exit.

Mexican football has traditionally been seen as one of the strongest domestic competitions in North and Central America. The region has produced some of the biggest clubs from this part of the world, including the likes of Club América and Club Deportivo Guadalajara . In the 18 editions where Mexican clubs took part in CONMEBOL ’s Copa Libertadores competition, they showed a superior level of performance. Even today, there are two of their teams topping the all-time points per season ranking in the competition, despite not actually winning any of the trophies.

This leadership is further statistically supported by data from IFFHS, the international organisation of football statisticians, who consistently rank Mexico’s top division as CONCACAF ’s strongest league in the last decade. Mexican teams constantly dominate the CONCACAF Champions League tournament.?A recent ranking done by Kick Algorithms based on the ELO method, show that, LIGA BBVA MX has dropped behind the Major League Soccer in the North American zone, and this may be a sign of things to come.

Let us analyse the reasons behind such an irregular performance level shown by the Mexican national team and the clubs from the region. Having assessed the development of Mexican football over the years, as well as its particularities, we think the following are, some factors that could be behind this phenomenon:

1.Being far ahead of the competition in the Confederation

For a long time, Mexican clubs and the Mexican league were the undisputed kings of the region (other countries were either too small, or did not take football too seriously, or both). This meant that Mexican teams did not need to do much to be ahead of the rest. There was no great commercial incentive to build up competition either, which was in any case likely to be focused on the national team rather than clubs. With the development of MLS in the last decade, and the emergence of the Canadian Premier League , this position could well be challenged in the short-term, paving the way for a repositioning in Mexico, but this time with the benefit of having increased international rivals to further build up the product.

2. Lack of consistency in competition formats and participation

The short season approach used in Mexico which is a staple of Central and South American football since the 1990s, means that there are two shorter seasons played each year, which in Mexico’s case are both crowned by a play-off final. The reasoning behind using shorter formats is that in a smaller competition, every match becomes important and therefore more appealing to a paying crowd instead of longer seasons. Having new champions each year mean that dominance is much more difficult to establish: in the history of professional league football in Mexico there have been no less than 24 different champions with the top three clubs - Club América , Club Deportivo Guadalajara and Toluca FC - winning only 13, 12 and 10 titles respectively. The closing of the top league as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic brings the format further away from the traditional 'open' approach to a US-style closed one.

3.Fragmented approach to the league 'product'

Unlike most European, North American and even a few South American leagues, broadcasting rights are sold individually by clubs, which has led to a patchwork of media deals. On one side, this might lead to some clubs getting better contracts than they would otherwise achieve in a combined approach with centralised distribution, but it has also created a challenging system for viewers, which is more geared towards following a single club rather than consuming the entire league output.

4. Insular focus

The Mexican league is a relatively rich competition with high player wages and transfer fees that would be respectable even at some top-level European leagues like Ligue 1 in France (interestingly, some high profile French National team players like Pierre Gignac and Florian Thauvin have been lured to Mexico in recent years). This makes the league rather look on itself rather than creating conditions for continuous improvement and a healthy competitive talent market where the league is a top-level talent interface, importing and exporting players to the best leagues and clubs across the world. Here, with a domestic focus, there is less incentive for people from other countries to follow Mexican football, even though the domestic market in Mexico is not to be sniffed at either, and would be enough to satisfy most domestic football leagues across the world.

5. Prevalence of 'football groups'

One thing that springs to mind when you think about Mexican club football is the continued presence of multi-club ownership groups within the same competition. There are several such groups operating in Liga MX, even though their prevalence has reduced somewhat in recent years. Funnily enough, this keeps happening as more and more such MCO groups are appearing all across the world, but in most places there is a restriction placed on having clubs under shared control in the same domestic league or international competition. This is not to say that there is no real sporting competition when clubs from within the same 'stable' meet, but it is certainly a cause for generating mistrust in results, especially if things in the league are tight, as they invariably are in football.

So then, what are the reasons to be optimistic about Mexican football?

1.Economy

Mexico already is a very strong economy on the global scale, but some predictions place it even further up the chart, even reaching the top-5 according to some experts.

2. Demographics

Mexico has a very sizeable population, with a forecast to grow in the medium term and reach close to 150 million by 2050.

3. Location

Sitting between the huge US market and its rapidly developing MLS and the rest of Latin America, Mexican football can leverage its geographic potential, rival MLS (every top competition needs to have a competitor) and refresh its image as a crucible for developing talented players from all over the region.

4. Football culture

There are plenty of countries with a relatively high population and reasonable economic conditions, but not all of them have such a colourful and individual tradition of football fandom that Mexico has, combined with a cohort of iconic clubs that have a degree of fame across the entire continent of both Americas.

5. The World Cup!

Both previous times the World Cup came to Mexico, it had an impact on local club football in a positive way – from a reorganisation of the game in the early 1970s after the 1970 event, to the one in 1986 arguably paving the way to Mexico’s most successful club period in the 1990s, when its domestic competition was possibly at the peak of its powers with a quality mix of great teams and players. The local football leaders will certainly hope that 2026 give a new boost to Mexican football and allow it to become one of the top global leagues with a truly global projection. Sharing the event with their US and Canadian counterparts, it is also a great platform to generate common development pathways, as well as friendly rivalry, which should do wonders for the continued economic viability (and profitability!) of football in this part of the world.

In our Football Talks section this week, we caught up with? Severiano Garcia Ruiz . We asked Severiano a few questions, and here is what he had to say.

1) How do you see the role of Liga MX in the forthcoming World Cup in 2026? Will it help Mexican club football, or will it bring challenges?

We have to start by setting the scene and explaining the structure of Liga MX. In the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, the Mexican league was locked. So there is no more promotion or relegation. We have 18 teams playing in the top division now with a variety of economic conditions: some have a lot of resources and others not so much. On top of that, we don’t have a centralised sale of media rights, which means that clubs sell their rights individually. And we also do not have financial fair play regulations. So, on one side we are moving towards the US model, but on the other hand we have a lot of financial inequality between the different clubs.

The second important aspect is the creation of the Leagues Cup to be played by all the MLS and Liga MX teams. This is really unprecedented, because this is the first official inter-league competition, since it is approved by CONCACAF, which is under FIFA.

In order to get this tournament played, both domestic leagues are pausing for a period, because they are both going to be in full swing at that time: a little bit like what happened for the world cup in Qatar, when leagues also were paused and then restarted. For us this is a very important move, because the North American market is quite 'compact' with USA, Mexico as the major leagues. There are a lot of Mexicans in USA and Canada, as many as 45 million, but we don’t really know the consumer there, so this is a way to bring the Liga MX product to them, focus on these 45 million in the US and learn about them.

The Liga MX is currently scheduled to remain locked until 2026, but the key issues for Mexican football at the moment generally are the multi-ownership of clubs, FFP and media rights centralisation.

2) So, with this move to a more US-style system and the shared competition with MLS, does it mean that Mexican clubs are going to go after the fans in USA and will try to work that market instead of the traditional domestic environment?

For me, we need to focus on developing domestic football. Right now, we have a situation where the teams below the top division are under-developed and do not have resources to compete economically.

The structure that has been implemented was to have the Liga MX as the top national league, and underneath it there is a Liga Expansion, whose mission is in theory to help improve club structures and especially infrastructures, getting them ready to take the step up. And below that we have the second and third divisions.

So for me, of course owners are interested in raising the values of their clubs and the new inter-league competition is a way to do it, but I also feel we need to concentrate on restructuring and developing the lower divisions to have a pathway for clubs and for players.

Mexico is a massive football country, and even a decade ago one would not place the MLS over Liga MX in terms of size and power, but the North Americans have really developed massively over this period. Is the Mexican domestic football under pressure and in danger of losing a bit its essence just now? ?

Well, we have a little bit what I would call the 'superleague-isation' of football in Central America. In this región, Liga MX and MLS are by far the biggest competitions and then you have the smaller domestic leagues, but increasingly the MLS with its new vision and approach is becoming differentiated.

To be really successful we need to export more players, but we are just not doing it for now. There is relatively little of the domestic Mexican 'player product' represented elsewhere, in the big European leagues or the #bottom49 clubs that play in important European club competitions. Partially this is down to our regulations on home grown players, and also the fact that we pay large transfers domestically, so players do not really need to go abroad, where they will not get what they are getting at home, and there is more competition.

In a way, we have not been able to come together over a particular development vision for the league so far, each club has its own interests and they are focusing on them.

3) For the Mexican fan, what is more important – their local clubs or the National team?

Of course, the clubs are important because they are present all the time, but for the Mexican supporter the National team is probably the more significant one, it is the top priority and the main focus. So, for instance, this is also shown in the fact that many times the Federation is asking clubs to help the National team, by pausing the club fixtures or to release players a few days earlier to enable them to train together. All the work is focused on helping the National team.

But to have a 'top' National team, you also need to have your players in 'top' leagues. And, as I mentioned before, we do not have a lot of Mexican players going abroad. The local market is high value, the wages are high and the transfers are expensive. Another thing to bear in mind is that there is relatively little exposure of Mexican football to European observers: the timing of matches, the level and the competition with other leagues makes it difficult for scouts to select Mexico as their priority. Here one of the things that probably played a major role was us leaving the South American club competitions: before, when we had teams in the Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana, there were more opportunities to impress. Mexican players are talented, but they do not have a massive international brand and projection outside, so there are few successful examples or obvious pathways to follow.

4) So, if you want to have a top National team in Mexico, you need to make Liga MX a top league. As an example, in our recent research on players released to National teams for the Qatar World Cup, the MLS were the 6th league globally in terms of player release, making them very close to joining the top-5 European leagues. How to do it in Mexico?

The MLS made significant changes to the way they approach squad building and what kind of player they focus on – a decade ago they were signing older well-known players and were complementing them with home-grown young guys. But now they have realised they can also attract a lot of the up-and-coming top South American talents, and also bring in quality European, Asian and African players, not least because they have a high level of life and the English language, which makes it easier for incoming players to adapt quickly.

Whereas for us in Liga MX, the focus area for ages has only been South America and we have not really looked beyond.

?When you look at South America, the two biggest leagues there with a difference are Brazil and Argentina, so they have the biggest player markets and the most interesting players. But there is a catch: what I would call 'A' quality players there are going to be on the shopping list of top European clubs. They will go to Spain, Italy, England; the big leagues. So they are out of our reach. We have usually been in the market for 'B' quality players from these two countries, but now we have to compete for them with MLS teams, and increasingly clubs from the Middle East. The 'A' quality players from the smaller South American leagues like Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela are also possible for us, but we do not take as many from there, and there is more and more competition there as well.

There can also be some specific cases of access to a particular market: for example, our coach was the former Brazil U23 national team coach, so we have a way in there, but this is not systematic in Mexican football as a whole.

I remember listening to a presentation by Monchi at a session you organised, where he spoke about the leagues they are concentrating on as a club, and how they choose them, and I often try to imagine how to make Mexico stand out for those that are looking in. But right now the MLS is starting to dominate this part of the world.

5) One of the features of Mexican football, which is not usual in other parts of the world, is the multi-club ownership and the different ownership groups that have emerged. Does this have a future in Mexico, do you think?

Well, on the level of regulations there is a move to put an end to it. We know it is not the best. Having said that, the group-owned clubs are some of the best-operated in Mexico. Grupo Pachuca and Grupo Orlegi work very well and have not really generated problems. Plus they have also acquired clubs in Spain as well, which creates opportunities for Mexican football abroad. But we know it can also create complex dynamics and a lack of trust in the league product. If we change it, one crucial aspect will be to have the right investors coming in for the clubs.

6) You mentioned Mexicans going to Spain, but in the case of your own club it is the other way round with Atletico Madrid. Do you think it is going to remain a unique case, or can it also be a model for Mexico to have more clubs taken over by European counter-parts?

Atlético de Madrid Madrid are a huge club and they saw this as a business opportunity, both on a domestic level, because the football market in Mexico is quite significant, and also as a way to get into the US via us. We have what we call the 'Bridge project', with Atletico San Luis acting as a bridge for identifying and bringing through talented South American players to Europe. The Mexican environment gives us the opportunity of three commercial choices: either sell in Mexico itself given that fees are quite large, transfer to Europe or keep at the club as our 'marquee' player.

?What we are missing a bit in Mexico is the right structure and environment to bring in more such investors as so far people have found it difficult to jump in, but this is changing. The product needs to be stable, consistent and have projections for growth. The local clubs know where we need to go and what needs to happen, so the next decisions on club football in Mexico will reflect this.

We are coming out of a disappointing result at the last world cup, so it feels like we have touched the bottom and all the decisions now are about creating the necessary change, on governance and regulatory levels.

7) How has the popularity of clubs in Mexico evolved and what value will the World Cup bring to the country?

We have spoken a lot about MLS and what they have done, but over there football is still behind their 'traditional' sports, whereas here in Mexico it is the number 1, number 2 and number 3! We may have had some poor results as a result of certain decisions or directions, but the supporter is still there and still unwavering, so it is only a case of taking the right decisions now.

As for San Luis specifically as a club, we need to show the value of our international reach and the level of our project. Plus, territorially we are very close to Guadalajara, which is going to be one of the epicentres for the world cup in 2026, so we can even be a location for one of the base camps for a national team.

In our Bottom 49 section this week, we would like to invite your attention to the data we have collected on the TV rights deals in Mexican football. Our research is consolidated below.

In our Football Insight section this week, we would like to invite your attention to an analysis we have done on Mexican football clubs with respect to their transfer values, the percentage of Mexican players in their current squads, and the number of Mexican players in their first teams.

We recently asked you, "Which is the most valuable football club in?Liga Bancomer MX?"

The correct answer to this question is represented in the analysis above.

We would like to take the opportunity this week to once again highlight our reports detailing the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on global football. We published 6 comprehensive editions on the subject. All of them can be read here.

As part of our co-operation with WinterLeague & WL Convention , we at LTT Sports aim to have a direct contribution in empowering?the Antalya Winterleague?global brand. Our Regional Associate Fathi Abou El Gadaiel has joined the Winterleague Convention team as an Advisory Board Member.

That brings us to the end of this week’s newsletter. We hope you found eye-opening insights from our content this week. Each week, we will be curating exclusive content for you from the club management ecosystem. So, stay tuned for more and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter?here!

LTT Sports is an advisory firm focused on connecting football strategy and operations based on experience, analysis and a strong network. At LTT Sports, we have created a set of services for football organisations, providing transversal solutions at any level of the professional football pyramid – to boost performance off the pitch, directly impacting on-pitch results.

*** Disclaimer: LTT Sports is an independent think tank aimed to be a platform of discussion amongst football stakeholders. The answers received for our interviews are personal views of the interviewee and/ or the organisation he or she may represent and strictly do not represent our views on the subject matter.?

Contributors to this week's newsletter:Olivier Jarosz,? Konstantin Kornakov , Javier Alejandro Kuan Ayala , Daniel Chira

Editor:?Ajay Abraham