Recently it’s all been confirmed that Morelia’s Monarcas team is headed to the state of Sinaloa to Mazatlan. We look at why relegation being suspended contradicts the sale of Monarcas to Mazatlan.
When we heard the news of Liga MX club Morelia to lose their faithful Monarcas to a stadium in Mazatlan, Sinaloa that few people knew about it sounded like a joke. The confirmation came as the team was being shipped off for $18 Million dollars. A joke of a trade seeing as Rodolfo Pizzaro was sold to Inter Miami’s MLS Club for around $18 Million as well.
Of course, it’s infuriating and it makes the public trust the league less because if a team that has won the championship in the past 2 decades as Morelia did in the year 2000, avoided relegation two years ago thanks to a Raul Diaz goal against Monterrey, and have held some of Liga MX’s best players. The question is, how can this mid-table club be shipped off for less of a small fee from a BPL team. What does this mean for teams as Atlas, Puebla, and others?
When the rule was announced that Liga MX teams came to an agreement for no relegation teams as San Luis, Juarez and others like Atlas who were most as a risk for being dropped into Liga Ascneso were relieved. This meant there was no need to worry as money would keep flowing from first division soccer contracts with TV companies as guaranteed first division play for 5 years at least.
It brought the opportunity to invest in homegrown talent rather than buying foreign players who are developed to win now and save money in the long run. Coached wouldn’t be held to such a short leash and be able to see some of their visions come to fruition. This move to cancel relegation and promotion from Ascneso was seen as an opportunity to protect these teams in the first division and grow to 22 teams in the league.
Liga MX blew it, they let one of the more successful mid-table Liga MX teams go and move cities and the most infuriating thing is they contradicted themselves not even a tournament after these new “rules” went into effect. Whether they knew or not of the move of Monarcas to Mazatlan.
What they did show was incompetence with nobody being on the same page from TV Azteca to Grupo Salinas, to Liga MX and the FMF. It’s a bad show and we can make comparisons to teams in the U.S being ripped away from their home cities because in most of those leagues a group vote of ownership around said the league is needed to confirm that move and it has to be done ahead of time to prep the team leaving a city as the Seattle Supersonics In the NBA did and as did the Cleveland Browns in the NFL.