Liga MX, FMF plan big changes before 2026 World Cup

Mexican Football Federation president Yon de Luisa and his Liga MX counterpart Mikel Arriola revealed an in depth roadmap and record of proposed changes to Mexican soccer on Tuesday.

The announcement comes on the heels of a disappointing yr for each the lads’s and ladies’s nationwide groups — the low level of which was a gaggle stage exit for El Tri in Qatar.

“What happened for the national teams in 2022, was very serious. Today, we meet to announce the new stage of restructuring,” mentioned De Luisa.

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With a watch in the direction of the 2026 World Cup, which Mexico will co-host with the United States and Canada, the 2 presidents shared particulars of a not too long ago fashioned nationwide workforce committee, a brand new govt director of nationwide groups in Rodrigo Ares de Parga, and an goal to face “high-level” opponents and schedule a 2025 summer time competitors for El Tri’s senior squad.

The nationwide workforce committee — made up of Liga MX membership management from Chivas, Santos Laguna, Club America, Necaxa, Club Tijuana and the FMF president — will assist De Parga within the technique of discovering a brand new males’s coach. Since the departure of Gerardo “Tata” Martino instantly after the group stage exit within the World Cup, Mexico has but to discover a substitute.

“There is no specific date, we hope it’ll be soon,” De Luisa mentioned a couple of doable choice to announce a males’s supervisor, later noting that there is a risk a coach can be named subsequent week whereas ruling out the concept of an interim appointment.

At the Liga MX stage, Arriola revealed a protracted record of proposals which have but to be formally confirmed by membership homeowners, who will meet in May. Although the league leaders might want to vote on the concepts, Arriola claimed that there’s a “great openness” to his plan.

If ratified, whether or not or not it’s individually or as a full bundle, proposals resembling going again to solely eight playoff invites as a substitute of 12, lowering the quantity of overseas gamers per roster from eight to seven, and establishing a brand new trophy for year-long outcomes, may all be in place as quickly because the 2023-24 season.

Regarding the brand new trophy, Arriola’s concept is to carry onto the present Liga MX format with two seasons and playoffs per yr, however with a separate championship earned for the cumulative whole of factors within the Apertura and Clausura.

Other motions, if authorized, may take extra time. Arriola needs to deliver promotion and relegation again, but additionally highlighted that just one second division workforce, Leones Negros, is authorized to be eligible for promotion. In order for promotion to first return to Liga MX, a minimal of 4 second division groups must be authorized. More eligible golf equipment could possibly be introduced by May.

Another concept that Arriola needs to deal with is ending the apply of single entities proudly owning a number of golf equipment inside Mexico. However, he didn’t present a timeline for reaching that purpose.

“What we need to take care of and assure to the assembly [of Mexican clubs] is that it’ll be an organized process, and that it’ll start, without a doubt, as a process that maximizes the value of the teams,” mentioned the Liga MX president.

At the second there are three possession teams that personal a majority of six groups: Grupo Pachuca (Pachuca and Leon), Grupo Orlegi (Santos Laguna and Atlas), and Grupo Caliente (Club Tijuana and Queretaro).

According to Arriola, tournaments just like the expanded Leagues Cup with MLS and the latest partnership between CONCACAF and CONMEBOL will assist improve perceived membership worth to doable new traders.

The CONMEBOL partnership introduced final Friday will showcase a Copa America within the United States in 2024, a girls’s CONCACAF W Gold Cup match with South American invites, and a “final-four” membership competitors that can contain two males’s groups from every confederation.

When requested if this might additionally imply a return for Liga MX to the Copa Libertadores sooner or later, Arriola mentioned that the “door has been opened” to the chance down the road.

An further mission introduced by Arriola was aiding within the technique of sending home gamers to European golf equipment. In the hopes of avoiding the inflated charges that exist in Mexico’s switch market, Liga MX’s president will push for extra groups to have affiliations with European golf equipment so as to doubtlessly transfer home abilities at a youthful age.

Arriola famous that the league and FMF may even “invest resources” to assist strikes overseas, resembling incentivizing groups whose gamers transfer to Europe and serving to people with the method of acquiring a passport.

“This is a before and after,” mentioned Arriola in regards to the define from the FMF and Liga MX. “Everyone has been asking for what was announced today.”

Mexican soccer has lived in a tumultuous interval that started with the senior males’s nationwide workforce dropping the Gold Cup last and the inaugural CONCACAF Nations League last in 2021, each to the United States.

After then failing to qualify for the 2023 Women’s World Cup, the 2023 U20 males’s World Cup, and the 2024 Olympics for each the lads’s and ladies’s groups, Mexico’s first stage of restructuring started final summer time with the firings of basic sporting director Gerardo Torrado, sporting director of nationwide groups Ignacio Hierro, girls’s nationwide workforce supervisor Monica Vergara and males’s U20 coach Luis Perez.

Since then, they’ve employed Andrea Rodebaugh as the brand new sporting director for ladies’s nationwide groups, Pedro Lopez as the ladies’s nationwide workforce coach, and Jaime Ordiales because the sporting director for males’s nationwide groups, alongside the latest employment of De Parga as govt director of nationwide groups.