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Ronaldinho puts Liga MX on the map but bigger problems hampering the league

By on October 2, 2014

When David Beckham joined the LA Galaxy in 2007, it was fair to say it was the first time that American Major League Soccer had put itself on the map. Brazilian star and World Cup winner Ronaldinho joined Queretaro of Liga MX, the top division in Mexico, a few weeks ago and had largely the same effect, giving a club and a league that has had little international exposure since the 1986 World Cup attention world-wide. Mexico has already been mad over the Beautiful Game for a long long time, yet Ronaldinho’s move has also helped improve the league’s overall attendance levels. Of course, the move can hardly do anything but good for Liga MX, yet it may be a premature move compared to that of Beckham’s seven years ago.

When Beckham moved to the MLS, its history and structure was completely different to that which Liga MX has now. From its founding season ten years previous, the MLS had been adamant and sure of the path that it wanted to take. When Beckham joined, however controversially, the league was and still is adamant of the road that will take in the future. In stark contrast, Ronaldinho joins a club in Liga MX which just a few months ago was in administration and was among a handful of clubs who were being investigated over failing to pay their players. And the league organizers hardly did anything or even spoke of doing anything about it. In fact, it is common for these kind of wage disputes in the league. To put it simply, the league is all over the place.

Liga MX seemingly has no solid plan for the future – highlighted by the absurd fact that they don’t sell the broadcasting rights to their matches, that’s right, they allow each individual club to sell their broadcasting rights. This has lead to disputes within itself, with some major Mexican companies monopolizing the league’s broadcasting. And the disturbing thing is the league has done very little about this.

Even its format has recently been changed multiple times. The league’s current format is a more simple single table league with the top eight its eighteen teams qualifying for “La liguilla”, comparable to the MLS Playoffs, at the end of the season. The only difference to most other league formats is that they play two annual tournaments instead of one, one which runs from August to December and the other throughout the other half of the year. But up until 2011 they ran a format in which instead of a simple single table league, they had the eighteen teams split into three groups in regard to their location, and the top two from each group plus the two best third place finishers would qualify for La liguilla.

Ronaldinho is certainly welcome presence in Liga MX, but the league, namely its organizers, have a long way to go to even lay the foundations for a plausible long term plan to gain a global following and reputation.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.