{"id":493115,"date":"2026-02-23T01:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/493115\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T01:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:29:08","slug":"soccer-matches-postponed-amid-violence-after-army-kills-mexican-cartel-leader-el-mencho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/493115\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer matches postponed amid violence after army kills Mexican cartel leader ‘El Mencho’"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEXICO CITY (AP) \u2014 Four high-level soccer matches were postponed Sunday after the Mexican army killed the leader of a powerful drug cartel<\/a> in a town close to the World Cup<\/a> host city of Guadalajara.<\/p>\n

Two top-tier games \u2014 Queretaro vs. Juarez FC in the men’s tournament and Chivas vs. America in the women\u2019s league \u2014 were postponed and two in the second division were called off.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Mexico\u2019s national team<\/a> has a friendly against Iceland scheduled for Wednesday at the Corregidora stadium in Queretaro. The Mexican soccer federation hasn’t made any public moves to postpone it.<\/p>\n

Nemesio Rub\u00e9n Oseguera Cervantes, \u201cEl Mencho,\u201d who led the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generaci\u00f3n<\/a>, was wounded in Tapalpa, Jalisco about a two-hour drive southwest of Guadalajara and he died while being flown to Mexico City<\/p>\n

Following his death, cartel members burned cars and blocked roads<\/a> in nearly a dozen Mexican states.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Jalisco\u2019s capital, Guadalajara, is scheduled to host four games in the World Cup in June, including two involving South Korea. Co-host Mexico, Spain, Uruguay and Colombia will also play there.<\/p>\n

The CJNG cartel is considered the most powerful in Mexico with an estimated 19,000 members and operations spanning 21 of Mexico\u2019s 32 states. It has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

The Mexican Open, an ATP tennis tournament, will begin Monday at the GNP Arena in Acapulco, Guerrero. Organizers issued a statement Sunday saying \u201cthe tournament’s operation continues as normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/a><\/p>\n

Carlos Rodriguez, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEXICO CITY (AP) \u2014 Four high-level soccer matches were postponed Sunday after the Mexican army killed the leader…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,180731,197917,29759,197915,151660,197916,197918,1072,561,18262,7413,82,87021],"class_list":["post-493115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cartel-jalisco-nueva-generacion","tag-cjng-cartel","tag-colombia","tag-drug-cartel","tag-guadalajara","tag-mexican-army","tag-mexican-states","tag-mexico","tag-soccer","tag-south-korea","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-uruguay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}