Mexican soccer is under official regulatory scrutiny. On Monday, September 14, the country’s National Antitrust Commission (Comision Nacional Antimonopolio, or CNA) announced it had opened a formal, ex officio investigation into possible monopolistic practices in the Mexican professional soccer market, under case file IO-001-2026.
The notice, published in the Diario Oficial de la Federacion, says the CNA’s Investigative Authority found sufficient elements to open the inquiry after tracking recent events and fan complaints about possible anti-competitive behavior. “After analyzing events over the past few months, the Investigative Authority determined there is sufficient evidence to formally launch an ex officio investigation into possible monopolistic practices within the Mexican professional soccer market,” the CNA stated.
The investigation covers possible “relative monopolistic practices”, the legal term for abuses of market power, in the market for “affiliation, organization and access to federated professional soccer competitions in Mexico, as well as similar or related services”. One important detail: the two-page official notice does not name the Federacion Mexicana de Futbol or Liga MX as targets. The CNA emphasized that the inquiry does not predetermine guilt. Nobody has been accused of anything, and the commission has not said the probe is limited to any single issue.
The promotion and relegation flashpoint
The investigation arrives in the middle of the fiercest governance fight Mexican soccer has seen in years: the elimination of promotion and relegation.
The FMF suspended ascenso and descenso in April 2020 as a temporary pandemic measure, after the federation’s extraordinary assembly approved a six-season pause meant to give second-division clubs financial and operational stability. The system was expected to return for the 2026-27 season. Instead, the league eliminated it outright starting with the Apertura 2026 tournament. Article 35 of the 2026-2027 competition regulations states that Liga MX clubs will not descend and Expansion MX clubs cannot ascend. For how the current closed system works, see our Liga MX format explained.
The reaction has been furious. At the start of the Apertura 2026 season, players from Expansion MX clubs including Correcaminos, Mineros, Coyotes, Leones Negros, Atletico Morelia and Atletico La Paz staged a peaceful protest, refusing to attack during the first minute of their opening matches. The FMF’s disciplinary commission answered with a formal warning and threatened fines of more than 200,000 pesos for any repeat protest. The FMF’s appeals commission later revoked those sanctions, ruling the disciplinary body lacked sufficient regulatory basis to sustain them.
Several lower-division clubs appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2025 seeking an early return of the system, but the appeal was rejected and the suspension stood through the end of the 2025-26 campaign. On August 12, 2026, five Expansion clubs, Leones Negros, Atletico La Paz, Atletico Morelia, Mineros and Cancun FC, lodged a fresh appeal against the FMF executive committee’s decision to eliminate the system outright and approve the competition regulations implementing it.
Politicians have joined the fray as well. On August 13, Movimiento Ciudadano national coordinator Jorge Álvarez Máynez filed a formal petition with the CNA, delivered to the Secretaria de Economia, asking the commission to analyze possible monopolistic acts arising from the elimination of ascenso and descenso, citing possible barriers to competition and other improper restrictions on the market. After the case was formally opened, he celebrated the move as excellent news for Mexican soccer and renewed his call to restore promotion and relegation on sporting merit. The opening of the case, however, is not a binding decision on pro/rel and does not by itself restore the system.
A long history of concentrated power
For decades, major media groups including Televisa and TV Azteca were deeply intertwined with Mexican soccer through club interests and broadcast rights. Those ownership structures have changed substantially in recent years, although questions about media concentration and the commercial structure of Liga MX remain part of the broader debate.
This is not the first time competition authorities have gone after Mexican soccer. In 2021, the CNA’s predecessor, Cofece, fined 17 clubs and the national federation 177.6 million pesos, then about $8.87 million, for monopolistic practices. The case involved salary caps in Liga MX Femenil and restrictions on player mobility through the so-called gentlemen’s agreement.
The CNA describes professional soccer as a major industry in Mexico. It generated more than 52 billion pesos, about $2.8 billion, in 2024 and supports about 150,000 jobs per year. Mexico has the world’s second-largest base of soccer fans, with roughly 250,000 people attending matches each weekend, and the 2026 World Cup final, which Mexico co-hosted, drew an estimated 30.5 million viewers in the country alone.
What happens next
If the CNA eventually finds anti-competitive conduct, those responsible could face fines of up to 10 percent of their annual revenue, plus orders to halt or correct the behavior. Those orders could, in theory, touch the very rules governing access to Mexican professional soccer.
The process will not be quick. Under the reported procedural rules, the investigative stage runs an initial period of 30 to 120 business days to gather evidence, extendable up to three times, which means document requests, witness summons and verification visits could stretch well beyond a year before the authority issues its ruling. During that period, any interested person can submit information to help the investigation.
As of September 17, neither Liga MX, the FMF nor its president Mikel Arriola had issued any public position on the announcement. For now, the only certainty is that Mexican soccer’s governance is officially under the microscope, and the closed league that defines the sport in the country has become the central exhibit.
