page_title: Football in Mexico
section_title: Professional clubs
hierarchical_section_title: Football in Mexico / Professional clubs
caption_attribution_description: Estadio Nemesio Diez, Toluca vs. Guadalajara
context_page_description: Mexico's most popular sport is football. As of 2018, the top tier leagues are Liga MX for the men and Liga MX Femenil for women.
  Football became a professional men's sport in 1943. Since then, Mexico's most successful men's clubs have been América with 13 Clausura titles, Guadalajara with 12, Toluca with 10 and Cruz Azul with 8. The first women's professional football league began play during the 2017–18 Liga MX Femenil season. It set new world records for attendance at a women's professional football matches.
  Antonio Carbajal was the first player to appear in five World Cups, and Hugo Sánchez was named best CONCACAF player of the 20th century by IFFHS. Mexico's largest capacity stadiums are Estadio Azteca, Estadio Olímpico Universitario and Estadio Jalisco. As of 2006, it was estimated that there were in the nation over 324,000 registered players and 8,155,000 unregistered players.
context_section_description: Men's football has been played professionally in Mexico since the early 1900s, inaugurated by club C.F. Pachuca. The first women's professional football league Liga MX Femenil was announced in December 2016 and the inaugural season started the following year. The development of women's football has occurred in waves since the 1950s.
  Since 1996, the country has played two split seasons (Apertura and Clausura) instead of a traditional long season. This system is common throughout Latin America. There are two separate playoff and league divisions. After many years of calling the regular seasons as "Verano" (Summer) and "Invierno" (Winter); Liga MX (historically Primera División de México, Mexico First League Division) changed the names of the competition, and opted for a traditional name of Apertura and Clausura (opening and closing). The Apertura division begins in the middle of Mexico's summer and ends before the official start of winter. The Clausura division begins during the New Year, and concludes in the spring season.
  Mexico's men's football has four tiers of clubs in the following order of level of competition: Liga MX, Ascenso MX, Segunda División de México, and Tercera División de México. Promotion and relegation are used by the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) to advance (promote) a lesser tier club into competition of like quality their aggregate percentage score warrants play in a higher competition tier. They replace the club that is demoted (relegated) to the next lower tier level based on their aggregate. Promotion and relation take place after the Clausura season has ended.
  Mexico's most successful men's clubs have been América with 13 Clausura championships, Guadalajara with 12, Toluca 10, and Cruz Azul 8. As of May 2018, Guadalajara (commonly known as Chivas) and Tigres are the most successful clubs on the women's side, each winning a championship during the inaugural season of Liga MX Femenil. Both championship matches set new world records for attendance at a women's football league match with 32,466 fans in attendance at the Apertura final and 51,211 at the Closura final match.
caption: Toluca playing against Guadalajara in the Estadio Nemesio Diez
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