Promotion and Relegation: The Representation Crisis of Mexican Footballers

Roberto Galán catches balls in Mexico's second division. He is not a man who speaks to the press often. Yet this week, the Atlético Morelia goalkeeper became the central name in the biggest debate in Mexican football, after declaring that players' voices "are not heard because they lack union support".

The response did not come from a club, nor from the federation. It came from the president of the union itself. Álvaro Ortiz, head of the Mexican Association of Professional Footballers (AMFPro), told TUDN in a curt line: Galán "does not represent any collective".

No ball rolls in this story. No goals, no red cards, no saves are mentioned. Only contracts, clauses and an old question that has never been answered decisively in Mexican football: when a player speaks, who is really listening?

I once waited three hours outside Gamba Osaka's offices just to confirm a personal agreement before publishing. I once pulled a story after missing a 12 million euro release clause. Those lessons taught me one thing: in football, the most important facts usually sit where there is the least noise. And the Mexican story is exactly that.

CONTEXT: A REFORM THAT WAS NEVER COMPLETED

In 2026, as the pandemic froze world football, the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) decided to suspend promotion and relegation between Liga MX (the top division) and the second tier. Initially it was called a temporary financial measure. Liga de Expansión MX was created, replacing the old Ascenso MX.

The problem is that the "suspension" was never restored. Five years have passed, and Mexican football still operates as a closed league at the top — a North American-style franchise model, where teams no longer fear relegation, and second-tier clubs have no path upward.

That is why the matter has outgrown an internal dispute. An initiative has reached the Mexican Senate, targeting Article 50 of the General Law on Physical Culture and Sport — a provision believed to be capable of forcing leagues to maintain promotion based on sporting merit. In parallel, some clubs have gone to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS/CAS) to demand its restoration.

Three fronts open at once: federation, congress, international arbitration. None has produced a result. And by the way I usually read a transfer file, when three parties make demands and none concedes, the first thing placed on the scale is always those with the least power — in this case, the players.

CORE INSIGHT: THIS IS A WAR BETWEEN TWO ECONOMIC TIERS

Reading the statements of both sides closely, I see something most Mexican outlets are missing. This dispute is not between players and clubs. It is a conflict of interest between two tiers of clubs — and the players are merely standing in the middle.

Look at the economic motive. For Liga MX owners, abolishing promotion and relegation removes the biggest risk in their model: the danger that relegation drags down broadcasting revenue, drives away sponsors, and erodes brand value. This is an asset-protection motive, pure and simple. Mexico's top owners — one of the most concentrated ownership groups in world football — do not run clubs as teams, but as assets to be shielded from volatility.

For Liga de Expansión clubs, losing promotion means losing their greatest reward — the jump in brand value and revenue that comes with going up. Without that path, the value of the club itself, and the transfer value of the players it develops, is compressed. A Mexican second-tier team today can no longer sell the dream of promotion to sponsors. It can only sell players.

This is where I want to pause, because it relates directly to my trade. Promotion is not merely a sporting matter — it is an implicit clause in every second-tier player's contract. When a second-tier club signs a young player, both sides implicitly understand there is a path upward. Promotion means bonuses, wage rises, visibility, a chance to be sold to a higher division. Remove that mechanism and you do not just remove a league — you neutralise part of the value in hundreds of signed contracts.

Ortiz of AMFPro touched on this, though he did not go deep. He said the issue goes beyond promotion and relegation, and that the union "must look after the contractual parts as such". That is the most important sentence in his entire statement, and it is buried under the personal spat. A union president talking about contracts — that is where real power is measured.

I have seen something similar before, in the COVID summer of 2026. When I reviewed the contracts of 18 Japanese clubs, I found Cerezo Osaka had to sell Hidemasa Morita for 1.5 million euros — over 60% below his pre-pandemic value. The cause was not the player's form. It was the club's cash flow. When league structure changes, contracts are the first place to absorb the shock — it is just that nobody reads them carefully until it is too late. That is precisely what awaits Mexican second-tier players, only larger in scale and longer in duration.

There is another layer rarely mentioned: second-tier clubs used the promise of promotion as a negotiating tool. When that promise disappears, they lose leverage in retaining and persuading players. This pushes them toward being purely a development academy for the tier above — a feeder model that, over the long term, erodes the appeal of the entire second division.

CONTRARIAN ANGLE: THE REAL PROBLEM IS NOT PROMOTION, BUT REPRESENTATION

Most commentary on this story centres on one question: will promotion and relegation be restored? I think that is the wrong question.

The right question is: does AMFPro actually represent Mexican footballers?

Notice how Ortiz rebuts Galán. He does not argue about the content of what Galán said — that players' voices are not heard. He attacks the speaker's standing. Ortiz says Galán "does not represent any collective" and hints that the goalkeeper is speaking "for the people who hired him, not the players".

This is a familiar move. When you cannot rebut the argument, you reframe the question around the arguer's standing. By labelling Galán an "individual" and assigning him a club-side motive, Ortiz tries to neutralise a dissenting voice while wrapping himself in the mantle of "the collective". The problem is that mantle is fraying.

Galán says many players stay silent because they fear reprisals. This is a one-sided, unverified accusation, and I do not want to turn it into fact merely because it sounds dramatic. But note one detail: across this entire exchange, there is no collective statement from Mexican players. No joint petition. No unified voice. That silence does not prove Galán right, but it is consistent with what he said.

Galán is a Spanish goalkeeper playing in Mexico. He compares the situation to AFE — Spain's players' union — and says that in Spain, his union "would burn football" if such a thing happened. This is perhaps the most important detail about Galán as a witness: he is an outsider placed on the inside, sufficiently independent from Mexican club and union networks to dare to speak. A purely Mexican player would have to weigh far more before opening his mouth, because his career depends on the very system being questioned.

That makes me wonder: if a foreign goalkeeper is the one who dares to speak, then in what conditions are domestic Mexican players — those who tie their entire careers to this system — keeping silent?

SOMETHING I LEARNED AFTER YEARS OF READING CONTRACTS

Whether a union is strong or weak is not decided by statements. It is decided by contracts. When you read a player's contract, you immediately see what his union negotiated for him: injury insurance clauses, wage-payment clauses in case of club bankruptcy, release clauses, promotion bonuses. Those numbers do not lie.

If AMFPro were truly strong, the contracts of Mexican second-tier players would reflect it. And if they do not reflect it, then the problem is not whether Ortiz answered Galán. The problem is that nobody bothers to read to the last page of the contract.

I do not have access to Mexican clubs' contracts, and I will not write as though I do. But the principle holds: a union that negotiates well does not need to speak much. They leave their mark in every clause.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

This dispute is travelling along two parallel paths. The first is political: the Senate initiative on Article 50. If it advances, the FMF could be forced to restore promotion by law, losing its autonomy over the format — something unprecedented at this level. The second is arbitration: clubs have taken the matter to TAS/CAS. But here lies the weakness of that path — CAS jurisdiction over competition format, which is the prerogative of a member association, is legally contestable.

Three scenarios are possible. Worst for the owners: the law is amended, promotion and relegation return by legal mandate. Neutral: the legal process drags on, political pressure produces a compromise reform or a new timetable. Best for the status quo: the Senate initiative stalls, CAS claims are dismissed, and the format remains unchanged.

In the transfer market, a release clause is never a number — it is a declaration of war. Promotion is the same. It is not an administrative rule. It is a promise to hundreds of young players that if they play well enough, they will move up. Remove that promise, and you do not need to wait until May to see who loses the trophy.

What interests me most is not the outcome in the Senate or at CAS. It is the question forgotten from the start: if promotion and relegation return one day, will Mexican players truly have a voice in the very negotiation that decides their future?

If the answer is still no, then restoring the format is only fixing a line in the law, not fixing a system. And every winter is the same — the May trophy is decided in the afternoons spent reading contracts. Afternoons when, in Mexico today, the players' voice has yet to be raised.