Leones Negros president exposes 240-million-peso fund: Did Mexican football buy silence with fines?

The Senate hearing in Mexico carried a title that said it all: “Fuera de lugar. ¿Por qué es injusto cancelar el ascenso y descenso en el futbol?” In the middle of the room, Alberto Castellanos, president of Leones Negros de la Universidad de Guadalajara, did not talk about lineups or tactical schemes. He recalled 240 million pesos – the amount he called an “improvement fund” created after promotion and relegation were abolished in 2026. But instead of treating it as compensation, he used it as evidence of a loss: “They had taken away our right to ascend.” In 2026, Mexican football suspended promotion and relegation. Liga MX became a de facto closed league: the top-flight clubs no longer faced relegation, while second-division clubs had no path to Primera División. To soften the backlash, the league agreed to create a fund for clubs that lost the chance of promotion. According to Castellanos, the fund came from fines: the bottom club paid 120 million pesos, the second-to-last 70 million, and the third-from-bottom 50 million. The three fines total 240 million pesos, yet he described 240 million as the amount distributed over six years to 12 teams. This ambiguity makes it difficult to know whether the fund was actually adequate. The fund’s mechanism deserves scrutiny. It creates no new value. It drains money from the three weakest Liga MX clubs each year and transfers it to clubs denied promotion. That is a system that redistributes failure: the bottom team pays a fine, the second-division club receives money, and the sporting right is not restored. If 240 million pesos is the six-year total, each of the 12 clubs receives roughly 20 million pesos – a small nudge compared with the revenue a Liga MX place could generate. If 240 million is the annual fine total, the cumulative amount would be larger, but it still fails to address the root problem: no competitive pressure, no reward for investment. When a league is closed at the top, the whole football value chain is distorted. Second-division clubs lose the incentive to invest in academies, scouting, and facilities. Talented players have no sporting reason to stay; they look for an exit to Liga MX or abroad. Sponsors and broadcasters see less value because matches no longer carry promotion stakes. Based on my experience watching Mexican football over many years, I see this as a structural problem: a pyramid with its summit removed, and every floor below begins to shake. In football governance, active defense means choosing where to fall, not where to stand still. Liga MX owners chose where to fall: they accepted paying money to preserve the status quo. The compensation fund is really a market where safety is bought for the hot seat of an entire league. Owners buy silence with money taken from the weakest clubs, turning a sporting dispute into a financial transaction. But that transaction has a term. If the fund only lasts six years, the story returns to square one when the cash runs out. A strong league is not one that never breaks; it is one that breaks in its own way. Mexican football is choosing to break in silence: paying to avoid change. Defensive data does not lie; it just goes quiet when you need an answer. The fund’s financial data does the same. There is a blind spot in the story Castellanos tells. The entire hearing features only the voices of the aggrieved clubs; no representative of Liga MX or the owners appeared to defend the 2026 decision. That absence could be a refusal to engage, or an editorial choice. Readers should treat the financial data as a one-sided claim until it is independently verified. More intriguingly, not all 12 clubs share the same interests. Some second-division clubs may quietly prefer the stability of a league without relegation, because they are not threatened by demotion. They may demand promotion publicly because of fan pressure, yet fear the return of fierce competition. This is why reforms often fail: the silent side is always larger than the vocal side. Six years is not a long time in football history, but it is long enough for a fund to run dry and for a generation of players to miss their promotion chance. Now that the Senate hearing has opened, the question is no longer how much Leones Negros receives, but whether a sporting right can be valued in fines. If the answer is no, Mexican football will have to give that right back – not in pesos, but with a ladder that second-division clubs can climb.