Mexico Ends Promotion & Relegation: What's at Stake

Promotion and relegation in Mexican football is gone. El presidente dijo nanay. I know that I said I was going to be five years, but I feel differently now, so no longer. And whoever wants to come and play with the big boys, you're going to have to save some money. It doesn't matter that you win El Apertura ni El Clausura del Ascenso. There's no path for the lesser teams to come to Liga MX First Division. This is something that is increasingly happening around the world. The MLS model that we like to call it is taking over football around the world. How dangerous, let me stress this my friends, how dangerous it is for the development of football around the world to do away with promotion and relegation. Let me break it. That is beautiful. Look, MLS has done it very well without relegation and they have many players playing in Europe right now. So having the relegation is not... an excuse for for a nation not to have these players playing in Europe. Now why is MLS doing it that way? They want to protect the investors. They want to build a league that is super strong and that the investors don't have to worry about their team being relegated the next season after they invested millions and millions of dollars to the club already. And Mexico is different because we were used to El Descenso. I think La Liga de Ascenso, it was very important. For the youngsters, they had a very good opportunity of showing themselves in La Liga de Expansión, now called Liga de Expansión, and having more minutes. Now in Mexico, unfortunately for our league, there's a lot of extranjeros playing in the starting eleven. Before, back in the day, it was only four, max five. Right now it's up to nine. So all of those things are taking time away from players. The young players, young talent from Mexico. Why is it important, relegation? Because it's been traditionally good for Mexico, right? It has brought a different flavor, just like it does in Europe. It has brought very good players, for example. We have Johan Vázquez, we have Montes, players that play in Liga de Expansión. Yeah, and national team players that play in Europe now. De los cimarrones. De los cimarrones. One of the teams from the Expansion League that has provided the most players to the national team and that team no longer will have a path to play at the highest level. As a young player that you You are part of an academy that is legendary and you have this illusion to go and now there's no more a path for you to go into first division with the team that you grew up playing with. How is that changing your outcome as a player? You're looking forward into the sport. I mean, I think the biggest word is motivation, right? Where is the motivation to continue to work harder, to get to those top-level teams in your dreams? And motivation also to stay in the league. If we don't have consequences for teams that aren't performing, How are we supposed to, you know, keep this standard? I think relegation and promotion, it helps, you know, even though it works for the MLS, it doesn't necessarily work for the Mexican League. And I think, you know, relegation and promotion helps keep the standards of the teams high because, honestly, my worry is that it's just going to slip. There's no bottom. There's nowhere to fall from. So you can play as bad as you want and there's no consequences. And yeah, we're talking about players and player development and this and that, but we're forgetting about the fans. Fans that don't have that opportunity, like Tampico Madera, very iconic club, and the Mexican League, Zacatepec, UDG, I mean, you name it, there's a lot of teams out there that they don't have the opportunity no longer to be part of La Primera and Liga MX. Those fans are La Trinca Fresera. That they love the team, that they follow the team regardless. Yes. And I think that Liga makes sense to think about that. You want football and soccer to be in every single region around the country, right? And I feel like right now, just how many teams do we have in Mexico City? I don't think that's fair, but again, if they win it on the field and go up to the first division, it's going to make a difference. That's why I say culturally, I think that the ascent and the rise in Liga MX has been very important for the tradition of football in Mexico and also for the fans of La Liga Mexicana.