Today, the Plenary of the Federal Economic Competition Commission (“COFECE“) imposed fines on individuals and companies that were involved in absolute monopolistic practices that prevent or inhibit competition in the soccer transfer market.

All this thanks to the fact that since 2016, various clubs agreed to establish a salary cap for Women’s Liga Mx players based on three categories: i) $2,000.00 pesos for players over 23 years old, ii) $500.00 pesos for players under 23 years old, and iii) only the payment of travel expenses and education for players under 17 years old.

Later in the 2018-2019 season, Liga Mx, issued a statement establishing that the salary cap would be $15,000.00 pesos and only 4 players of each team could earn above such amount, preventing clubs from competing for female players, creating a greater salary gap between men and women in the soccer industry.

Likewise, the aforementioned people are sanctioned for their participation and responsibility in a collusive agreement that had the effect of segmenting the players’ market in order to limit the clubs’ competition in the contracting of players. Such agreement is better known as the “Pacto de Caballeros” (Gentlemen’s Agreement).

Through this Agreement, the clubs affiliated within the Mexican Soccer Federation registered the players with whom they had a contract, so that, upon expiration of the contract, they could retain their players until another interested club requested authorization to carry out the signing, which included a consideration in most cases.

As a result of the aforementioned conducts which generated a damage in the market for the amount of 83.4 million pesos, COFECE’s Board decided to sanction the parties involved with fines amounting to a total of 177.6 million pesos.

Should you have any questions or require further information regarding this note, please contact José Ruiz (jose.ruiz@rapa.mx) and/or Nestor Velasco (nestor.velasco@rapa.mx)