In much of Mexico, a soccer field is the safest place a child can be. That is precisely why the cartels have found it so useful.

A trafficker's playbook

The most thoroughly documented case sits in the public record of a New York courtroom. Testifying at the 2018 trial of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, a Sinaloa and Juárez cartel operative named Tirso Martínez Sánchez — nicknamed "El Futbolista," the Footballer — described buying professional and semi-pro clubs in several Mexican cities with trafficking proceeds, Mexico News Daily reported. He testified that he bought one Michoacán club for about $2.2 million and sold it years later for some $10 million. Extradited to the United States, Martínez pleaded guilty to trafficking roughly $70 million in cocaine.

He was not alone. In Michoacán, a powerful trafficker built youth soccer schools, outfitting children with jerseys and cleats bought with drug money, Justice in Mexico documented, citing investigations into clubs whose finances made no legitimate sense.

How the money moves

The appeal is simple: soccer is a cash-rich, community-trusted business that can absorb dirty money and confer respectability. The Financial Action Task Force, the Paris-based body that sets global anti-money-laundering standards, catalogued the methods in a study of laundering through football. One anonymized case it cited — flagged by Justice in Mexico — involved a man who returned to a small town with unexplained wealth, bought a lower-division club, kept player salaries normal but poured money into infrastructure far beyond what the team could justify, and was later identified as the head of a trafficking organization.

The mechanics vary: transfer fees inflated to move money across borders, padded sponsorship deals, and adjacent businesses used as conduits. InSight Crime's regional analysis identifies club ownership as one of the most durable tools organized crime has found in Latin American soccer — precisely because it nests coercion inside something communities love.

When the violence reaches the stands

The danger is not only financial. On March 5, 2022, a brawl between rival cartel-linked supporter groups erupted inside a top-flight match between Atlas and Querétaro in central Mexico, leaving dozens injured in scenes that shocked the country and drew global attention to how deeply criminal groups had penetrated the fan culture around the professional game.

The children in the crossfire

The deepest cost falls on the young. Researchers and Mexican civil-society groups estimate that well over 100,000 children and adolescents face active cartel recruitment risk, driven by poverty and high youth underemployment. A cartel-funded soccer school is more than a money-laundering vehicle; it is a place where young athletes learn who holds power in their neighborhood — and what that power expects in return. Local reporting from violence-torn cities such as Celaya, in Guanajuato, has described cartels using youth leagues for recruitment and territorial signaling, extracting money from families and teams.

With the 2026 World Cup set to bring matches to Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, scrutiny of money in Mexican soccer is intensifying, and authorities have moved against accounts tied to laundering concerns. But for the families who simply wanted their children to have somewhere to play, the erosion has always been quieter than a stadium riot. It can look like a new jersey, or a stranger admiring a teenager's speed — and by the time a field becomes a place of obligation rather than joy, the choice about what comes next has often already been made.