By Paul Tenorio, Felipe Cardenas and Adam Crafton
Liga MX commissioner president Juan Carlos Rodriguez resigned Friday after a meeting of Liga MX owners as the league weighed a potential $1.25 billion investment from Apollo Global Management.
Rodriguez was elected president of the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) in May of 2023, following the final two tumultuous years that the federation endured under his predecessor Yon De Luisa.
After Mexico were eliminated in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, De Luisa did not seek re-election. Rodriguez was not an out-of-the-box hire, though.
Like De Luisa, Rodriguez held a senior management position at Grupo Televisa before joining FMF. He was the president of sports enterprises with an influential hand in shaping the network’s football coverage in Mexico and the United States.
Rodriguez moved to the commissioner role in June 2023 after an organizational restructuring.
He was charged with guiding the league through a restructuring, which included centralizing the league’s television and commercial rights and operations. Sportico reported those efforts included “the creation of an entity, ‘La Comercializadora,’ to house grouped commercial rights such as sponsorships and media deals.”
Rodriguez was the point man for the deal with Apollo, and a source involved in discussions indicated that Rodriguez pushed for the agreement to come to a vote at the owners meeting on Friday.
There was no vote, however, and the FMF released a statement stating that Rodriguez resigned due to “personal reasons.” The FMF also announced that president Mikel Arriola would assume the role of interim commissioner.
“The Assembly requested the Interim Commissioner to form a committee of 10 teams in January to continue negotiations with the investment fund, with a special emphasis on strengthening the corporate governance of the institution, and move forward with the all-important transformation project for our soccer,” the statement read.
Rodriguez’s background and knowledge of both markets was seen as a positive, particularly in regards to closing deals like the Apollo one.
“We know that we are the kings of a very unique hill which is Mexican soccer in the U.S.,” Rodriguez told The Athletic in 2021. “That means Liga MX, the Mexican national team, and any (Liga MX) games that are played against MLS clubs. Liga MX is becoming more relevant (in the U.S.) due to the success of MLS. When we bought Euro (2020) and the UEFA Champions League, we knew that we needed to increase the size of our footprint outside of Mexican Americans. That investment has always paid off.”
Rodriguez did not immediately respond when reached for comment.
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(Photo: Hector Vivas / Getty Images)
