Cachirules

The term cachirul (plural cachirules) is a Mexican colloquialism roughly meaning "someone who cheats" or "a fake",^[3] and was originally used in amateur football to describe unregistered players fielded under another player's name to avoid forfeiting a match for lacking enough registered players.^[4]

Between December 1987 and February 1988, the Mexico senior national team won all three of its matches against Guyana and Guatemala in the CONCACAF qualifying tournament for the 1988 Summer Olympics, securing qualification.^[5][6][7]

Separately, Mexico and other national youth teams of the CONCACAF region were required to finish in first or second place in the 1988 CONCACAF U-20 Tournament, hosted in Guatemala during April 1988, in order to qualify for the 1989 FIFA World Youth Championship in Saudi Arabia.

Earlier in the same year, on 3 January 1988, FIFA issued a statement warning all national associations not to attempt to deceive the footballing authorities regarding the age of players participating in youth tournaments, in response to what was common practice by youth teams across the world of including players of ages over the regulatory limit. The maximum age established by FIFA for participation in the World Youth Championship was 20 years.

In Guatemala, Mexico opened the tournament with wins over Bermuda (4–1) and Cuba (2–0), followed by a 7–0 win over the Netherlands Antilles and a 2–2 draw with Canada, which secured passage to the final round.^{[8][9][10][11]} In the final round, Mexico defeated Guyana and the host team, defeated Cuba again on 20 April, lost to Costa Rica 3–0 on 22 April, and then beat the United States 2–1 to clinch second place and qualification for the World Youth Championship.^[12][13][14]

Journalist Antonio Moreno of the Mexican public television network Imevisión (now TV Azteca) and a columnist for the newspaper Ovaciones, discovered, together with colleague Alfredo Ruiz, a discrepancy between the players' ages published in an April 1988 FEMEXFUT yearbook (1986–87 edition) and the ages the federation had submitted to CONCACAF for the qualifying tournament in Guatemala.^[1] On 20 April 1988, Moreno published an article emphasizing the risk of "trying to create an advantage over the opponents by including players over the permitted age." In response, then-FEMEXFUT president Rafael del Castillo played down the matter and verbally attacked the reporter.^[15]

Moreno was backed up by fellow Imevisión journalist José Ramón Fernández, who broadcast the story on his program La Misma Hora. FEMEXFUT's initial reaction was to deny and ignore the accusations, but once the public realized the scope of the scandal, Mexican journalists began interviewing players and searching for birth certificates. The newspaper La Jornada published an altered birth certificate belonging to José Luis Mata on 17 April, showing he exceeded the age limit; further reporting subsequently uncovered that Gerardo Jiménez and José de la Fuente were both two years over the established limit, while defender and team captain Aurelio Rivera was found to be several years over age.^[15] Rivera later claimed in interviews that every member of the squad except two, Marco Antonio Ruiz and José Antonio Noriega, was overage, though this assertion was never independently verified.^[16]

The story was widely covered in Mexican press and television and inevitably reached the United States Soccer Federation, which, along with the Guatemalan Football Federation, filed an official complaint with CONCACAF demanding an investigation, after the U.S. youth team failed to qualify for the World Youth Championship in Saudi Arabia.^[17] The investigation was carried out by Salvadoran official José Ramón Flores, who promptly confirmed that the ages submitted by FEMEXFUT for the squad were false.^[18]

Mexico's federal prosecutor's office, the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR), also opened an investigation into whether the players' birth certificates had been falsified. Under questioning, the players admitted to having provided altered ages when obtaining their birth certificates, with the process reportedly overseen by Rafael del Castillo.^[18]

CONCACAF determined that the ages of the four players (Jiménez, de la Fuente, Mata, and Rivera) were in fact false, and Mexico was disqualified from participation in the World Youth Championship in Saudi Arabia.

Several federation officials were banned for life—though not team coach Francisco Avilán, who stated he had warned FEMEXFUT about the overage players but had been ignored by del Castillo—among them José de Jesús Álvarez Guzmán, Rafael Castellanos, Rafael del Castillo, Víctor Manuel González, Ramón Martínez, Manuel Aceves Montenegro, Gerardo Gallegos, Gilberto Morfín Salazar, Francisco Javier Cantú, and Héctor Antonio Pérez.^[18][19] With Mexico's disqualification, the United States replaced Mexico in qualifying for the World Youth Championship and, along with Costa Rica, represented CONCACAF at the tournament.

Rafael del Castillo traveled to Zurich on 22 June 1988 and attempted to appeal before FIFA, hoping to overturn the life ban issued by CONCACAF; no regard was given to Mexico's situation.^[2][20] Mexican federation officials traveled to FIFA headquarters confident in the influence that Mexican executive Guillermo Cañedo held within the organization as an advisor to FIFA president João Havelange, but did not achieve the result they sought.

On 30 June 1988, FIFA not only upheld CONCACAF's decision to eject the Mexican U-20 team from the World Youth Championship, but also barred all Mexican national teams, including the senior team, from all FIFA-sanctioned international competition for two years, retroactive to 25 April. This penalty disqualified Mexico from the 1988 Olympic tournament in Seoul—for which it had already qualified, and which Guatemala entered in its place^[21]—and also meant Mexico was barred from entering qualifying for the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy.^[22]

Previous violators of age limits had only received bans from underage competitions. FIFA believed these past sanctions had had little effect, and said the harsher punishment was intended "to serve as a strong warning."^[23]

The following week, FIFA selected the United States as hosts for the 1994 FIFA World Cup; a conspiracy theory holds that Mexico's disqualification from the 1990 tournament was intended to make it easier for the U.S. team to qualify, and so drum up interest in the sport there.^[24]

After the disqualification, Mexico has never been able to advance past the round of 16 since returning to the World Cup in 1994, making 1986 the last time the national team reached the quarterfinals. Some observers believe the fourth-match elimination is a curse tied to the Cachirules scandal.

• Age fraud in association football