Mexico: COFECE probes Mexican soccer league

The teams of the Liga MX, Mexico´s First Division soccer league, are under the spotlight of the Federal Commission of Economic Competition (COFECE) over possible monopolistic practices in the process of transferring players.

Suspicions about the exchange of contracts between national clubs have grown over recent years, since several players protested and revealed details of what they called a “Gentlemen’s pact,” a kind of unwritten agreement that determines which players can be signed and which cannot

The COFECE initiated, from June 29 of this year, a probe into the forms in which players are hired by professional clubs. The investigations on the League and the Mexican Football Federation will last between 30 and 120 days. It is stated that practices are considered unlawful include “contracts, agreements, arrangements or combinations thereof” between economic agents that modify the market to their benefit. The third section further bans actions that “divide, distribute, assign or impose portions or segments of a current or potential market.”