Football matches postponed in Mexico after drug kingpin El Mencho killed

Cancelled games included the seventh round of the Clausura tournament in Mexico’s premier MX professional league.

Four high-level football matches were postponed on Sunday after the Mexican army killed the leader of a powerful drug cartel in a town close to the FIFA World Cup 2026 host city of Guadalajara.

Two top-tier competition fixtures – Queretaro vs Juarez in the men’s tournament and Chivas vs America in the women’s league – were postponed, and two in the second division were called off.

An international friendly match between Mexico and Iceland, which was scheduled for Wednesday at the Corregidora Stadium in Queretaro, has also been cancelled by the Mexican Football Federation.

Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho”, who led the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was wounded in Tapalpa, Jalisco, about a two-hour drive southwest of Guadalajara, and he died while being flown to the national capital, Mexico City.

Following his death, cartel members burned cars and blocked roads in nearly a dozen Mexican states.