Mexico's Liga MX Femenil
Liga MX Femenil: planting the seed of change in women’s football in Mexico
The top flight of Mexican women’s football has become the standard-bearer in the Americas in the three years since its inception, breaking attendance records and supplying the national team with an array of talent. The future is bright for the Liga MX Femenil.
Women’s football has well and truly come into its own in the 21st century. Over the last two decades, the game has grown exponentially across the globe in terms of both club and international football. Statistics relating to the number of players, match attendances and sponsorship deals all continue to increase steadily.
One of the best examples of the growth potential in women’s football competitions is the Liga MX Femenil, which has showcased just what it can offer fans all over Mexico in the three years since its inaugural campaign. 5 December 2016 was the date when the world first found out about the project that the Liga MX and the Mexican Football Association had been working on for some time. On that day, Enrique Bonilla, the Executive President of the Liga MX, announced the launch of the new competition and unveiled some initial details.
The Liga MX Femenil is made up of two tournaments each season: the Apertura and Clausura. After a regular league campaign, the eight best teams compete in two-legged knockout ties to determine the champions.
A talent factory
One of the most innovative aspects is the strategy devised in order to achieve the league’s main goal, which goes above and beyond the competition itself, of being a talent factory to boost the standard of Mexican footballers and provide a pipeline for the national team. A worthy question is: how can you develop talent in a completely new competition? The answer lies in a series of rules that make the league unique. For starters, every player must be a Mexican national, albeit this restriction is set to be relaxed in the future. There is also a regulation stipulating that the youngest players must play a minimum number of minutes during the campaign.
Last season, teams had to select youngsters born on or after 1 January 2001 for at least 1,000 minutes, which allowed them to get playing time alongside more experienced players. This has had a direct impact on performances at youth level for the Mexican national teams. It is no coincidence that the U-17 national side finished runners-up at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup Uruguay 2018, having never previously reached the semi-final stage. In addition, the U-20s have already qualified for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Costa Rica/Panama 2021™.
The competition offers players the chance to mature as footballers. This can be seen in the fact that the average age is just 22.7 years among the almost 500 players registered, with over 50 of them getting called up to represent the national team in different age groups. Talent development has not occurred purely on the pitch, but also in the dugout. Mónica Vergara, who has achieved regular success on the global stage in recent seasons, is a fitting example of this. Not only was she at the helm for the aforementioned run to the final in Uruguay in 2018, but she also guided Mexico to a bronze medal at the Girls’ Youth Olympic Football Tournament Nanjing 2014 and has led the U-20s to next year’s global showpiece.
Record-breaking attendances
While the players have outperformed expectations, the supporters also warrant a special mention, having immediately taken to the new competition in their droves. In 2018, 51,211 fans witnessed a clash between Tigres and Monterrey, which was a world-record attendance at the time for a club match in the women’s game.
Over the last three years, fixtures in the Liga MX Femenil have attracted over 2.5 million supporters to stadiums, while the television viewing figures for each league campaign have hovered around the 5-million mark. The league has also hit the back of the internet, with its social media channels racking up a million followers and 128 million impressions over the course of each competition, which proves that Mexican supporters are thoroughly enjoying the talents of the very best female players in the country.
Behind the scenes: professional management
Since day one, the bodies managing the competition have set a range of objectives, with professional administration at all levels one of the key priorities.
A network of 108 experts that make up the coaching staff at the 18 teams in the league has been developed. Among them, many women are currently in roles of significant responsibility: there are four head coaches, two technical assistants, five sporting directors and 22 division-specific venue coordinators. With regard to refereeing, there are over 100 officials from the Referees Committee; these include 11 female referees in possession of the FIFA badge, which is the highest refereeing distinction on the international stage.
There are still a host of ambitious goals in place on the development path that lies ahead. The league has been under a new administration since 2019. In the same year, sponsorship agreements were signed with BBVA, which acquired the naming rights, and Caliente group, which became the division’s digital partner. In terms of developing technological tools for players, the agreement with the Centre for Technological Innovation (Centro de Innovación Tecnológica, better known as CITEC) will provide new solutions in the field of technology within football, with the aim of maximising performance levels, both among players and in the league as a whole.
In general terms, the management team has set out three targets for the coming years: the professionalisation of the industry, capacity-building at all levels and investment in development and training. The sky is certainly the limit. In its three-year existence, the Liga MX Femenil has showcased the potential of women’s football by creating a unique model that has considerably improved the standard of players in the national teams and has given rise to a legion of supporters that stands in the millions. Thanks to a fresh and innovative strategy, the seed planted three years has already started to bear fruit.
