Two empty chairs: The governance test for Mexican football at the Senate

An empty chair is not always meaningless. On September 21, at the Senate of Mexico, the hearing on the abolition of promotion and relegation in football took place with the two most important chairs empty. Commissioner of the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) Mikel Arriola and Executive President of Liga MX Francisco Iturbide received the invitation but did not appear. The organizers received no reply; only silence. In a forum titled “Why is it unfair?”, that silence became an answer. Senator Clemente Castañeda, who promoted the event, did not talk about tactics or results; he talked about justice and social mobility. He wanted to take football out of the owners' boardrooms and put it under the legislature's light. When the two most powerful men did not step into that light, the story wrote itself. The context must be repeated. Mexican football once had promotion and relegation as a competitive mechanism. Since 2026, FMF and Liga MX suspended it, with the official reason being financial stability during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second division, Liga de Expansión, became a cage without doors. Clubs such as Cancún FC, Leones Negros, Mineros de Zacatecas, Atlético La Paz and Atlético Morelia had no way out, no matter how well they played. Moreover, the entire ecosystem below was frozen: young players saw no pathway to the top, sponsors reduced their investment, and academies lost their reason to keep talent. The hearing was split into two discussion tables: one on sport and labor impact, the other on governance and the economic impact of closing the competition system. The people in those rooms were not Liga MX owners but second-tier clubs, lawyers, former players, journalists and specialists. In other words, the forum was led by the aggrieved side and by critics. No one defended the current policy. This made the hearing record almost an indictment, even though no one used that word. This is where we need to look at structure instead of drama. “A shot makes a goal; a cycle makes value.” The value of Mexican football lies not in one goal or one season, but in the governance cycle now being blocked. When promotion is closed, second-tier clubs lose the highest sporting reward: a place in the top flight. They also lose the associated revenue: promotion bonuses, broadcast revenue share, sponsorship value and fan appeal. A club that cannot be promoted will never be valued like a club that can be. That is the difference between an investment with an exit and an investment trapped. “The wage bill is the last place people tell the truth.” Looking at the wage bills of both tiers shows who holds resources and who is blocked. Liga MX owners paid heavily to buy league places; they do not want their assets eroded by relegation. Closing the system is precisely a policy of protecting incumbent owners' asset value. In essence, it redistributes opportunity: the opportunity of second-tier clubs is converted into the safety of top-flight clubs. The price of that safety is paid by the whole system: fewer meaningful matches, fewer dramatic stories, a weaker television product. The important point is that Arriola and Iturbide's absence is not merely an administrative detail. It creates a narrative vacuum. In politics and media, a vacuum is never zero; it is quickly filled by the story of those present. Those present in the Senate that day were second-tier clubs and legislators; they told the story of an unfair system. No FMF or Liga MX representative stood up to refute it. The hearing record consequently became one-sided. In any dispute where one side does not show up, the other side almost always wins the narrative battle, even if the final verdict is different. Arriola and Iturbide may have believed that attending would legitimize a hostile hearing. They did not want to make binding commitments before senators, in a space where every word could be cut and pasted. But when people see two empty chairs, they do not think of strategic wisdom; they think of evasion. Reputation is eroded even before any verdict is delivered. In football history, systems that refuse dialogue with those below usually pay a long-term price in resistance. The issue goes deeper: the story has moved from the pitch to the legislature. Senator Castañeda did not stop at asking about promotion; he declared sport is a matter of public interest. This is a potential legal lever. If sport is treated as a public interest, federation decisions are no longer private business for a group of owners. They become subject to state scrutiny. That is why this hearing exists. Once senators examine it, they will not easily drop it; the story may reappear during election cycles or policy campaigns. But the one-sided narrative must be challenged. “A good journalist is not the first to arrive, but one who knows which waiting room is real.” In this case, the real waiting room may not be the Senate. The absence of the two leaders does not automatically prove guilt. The organizers' statement was careful: non-attendance “alone does not establish that they formally rejected participating.” It might be scheduling, or a coordinated move to avoid confrontation. We do not have enough facts to assign motive. If they later offer an explanation, the story may shift. But the longer the silence lasts, the more their explanation will be doubted. Moreover, the closed promotion model is not a Mexican invention. It resembles the franchise model of North American sports leagues, where teams hold permanent league places. In that model, financial stability and brand value are prioritized over sporting fairness. Owners can argue that a closed league attracts sponsors more because no one gets relegated. That is an economic logic, even if it contradicts the football tradition of Europe and Latin America, where movement between divisions is considered the soul of the sport. The blind spot of the second-tier clubs should also be examined. They are not passive victims. Their presence in the Senate was a coordinated act to seize a political opportunity. They know a hearing has no binding force, but it can pressure FMF and Liga MX before the public. If lawsuits or legislative changes follow, the hearing record will be important evidence. “Evidence is buried in two signatures, not in official memos.” Promotion and relegation clauses are in FMF statutes; any suspension should follow the proper procedure. That question remains unanswered. Once the second-tier clubs decide to sue, they can ask a court to examine the legality of the suspension, not just express grievance. Looking at the chain of events, the real risk is that the debate is escaping football's borders. Movimiento Ciudadano is a political party; it is using this issue as a transparency tool. When a political party picks up the story, it is no longer solely FMF's. It becomes part of a national agenda. Once on the national agenda, the federation's choices narrow. They cannot keep treating this as an internal matter. They must answer to senators, the media and voters. There is a question the two absent leaders probably wanted to avoid: what will they do if the Senate moves from discussion to action? No one knows. But their absence made the question bigger. If they had a convincing answer, why not bring it to the floor? Maybe they had no answer. Maybe they feared any explanation would be twisted into an admission of injustice. But silence can also be read as an admission. At this point, no choice is really safe. Conversely, second-tier clubs should also be careful. A media victory is not a substantive victory. If FMF does not change its decision, they will still be trapped in Liga de Expansión. A favorable hearing today may become only a memory if there is no follow-up. They need to turn political pressure into a binding mechanism, such as a legislative proposal or an administrative lawsuit. They also need to keep the story in the press, because public attention is the only asset they have in this game. In the end, the problem is not just promotion. It is a question of power: who gets to decide the fate of a football nation? Can a federation and a league run the system without dialogue with those below? History shows that prolonged closed systems create accumulated resentment. That resentment does not disappear; it waits for a political door to open. Today, that door opened at the Mexican Senate. The two most powerful men did not walk through. They may have reasons, but the public did not hear them. In a democracy, the silence of power is often read as admission. And football, no matter how closed its system, cannot escape the politics around it. “Every cycle has three peaks: the emotional peak, the event peak, the bank peak.” This hearing may not yet be the bank peak, but it has brought emotion and event onto the same plane. The remaining question is whether the bankers – those holding Mexican football's assets – will sit at the table before the system forces them to sit down. Or will they keep being absent, until there are no chairs left to empty?