AFAIL suffers severe internal crisis due to divisions between teams

Chaos has arrived in the children's tackle sport of the Laguna Region. The "harmony" that had hung in the balance for years in the Laguna Children's American Football Association (AFAIL) has been shattered, affecting dozens of children who simply want to play their favorite sport on the gridiron.

Parents of the various teams that make up AFAIL will meet again today with Ramón Chufani, director of the Municipal Sports Institute (IMD) of Torreón. Last Tuesday, May 6, they were at the Galería del Deporte Lagunero (Gadel) behind closed doors, without the media that had covered the Torreón Sports Unit's monthly report.

“ In follow-up to Mayor Román Alberto Cepeda’s commitment to promote comprehensive development in Torreón’s sports leagues, our director Ramón Chufani, along with Alicia Guerrero and Antonio Cepeda, met again with parents of the Laguna Children’s American Football Association (AFAIL), managing to mediate an agreement that would resolve one of AFAIL’s current problems in the medium term ,” the IMD published that day on social media.

And he added: "The commitment is to work together to create an optimal sports environment for our young athletes." It's worth remembering that Cepeda is the current head of the Coahuila State Sports Institute (INEDEC), and Guerrero is the president of the board of trustees of Deportiva Torreón, which serves as the home of the Giants and Panthers, who play their home games on the Raúl Allegre synthetic field.

In a letter issued last Tuesday, May 13, by AFAIL, it states: “Based on the evaluation of recent events and given the lack of minimum safety conditions and guarantees of compliance with current regulations—of which representatives of the Vikings Club are fully aware—the Ducks, Giants, Raiders, and Aztecas clubs, with the support of their respective boards and parents, have made the decision not to hold the scheduled matches against said club.”

And he adds: “ Likewise, the Panthers and Jaguars teams, whose matches against the Vikings have already taken place, express their support for this position and have decided not to participate in possible final phase matches against the same team, if the case arises .”

THE ORIGIN

The situation began some time ago, when four players from the Aztecas del Multideportivo Oriente de Torreón decided to join the Vikings. To receive their "release" letter, they had to sit out a year of playing, and that's what they did.

The players, now part of Club San Isidro's "La Marea Púrpura," missed a season, and when they had already complied with the AFAIL regulations, they were notified days before the start of the 2025 pre-youth season that it wasn't one year, but two.

Around that time, on April 10, AFAIL itself announced that Omar Israel Reyes Mendoza was no longer its interim president, and so the 2025-27 slate was elected, with César Alfredo Quiñones Jáuregui as its top dog, Luis Adán Bonilla García as its secretary, and Lisandro Augusto Orozco Ramírez as its treasurer.

In the second round of the junior youth divisions, at the end of April, the Vikings defeated the Deportiva Torreón Panthers on the road. They won 0-50 in the Peewee division, 0-39 in the Midget division, and 6-20 in the Jr. Bantam division, but lost at the table due to the situation of the players who came from the Aztecas.

On the third day, San Isidro visited the Jaguares del Campestre Torreón.

In a peaceful protest, the Vikings parents did not enter Jaguar Dome Stadium and instead supported them with banners from a pedestrian bridge and scaffolding they placed next to the building's wall. The meeting with the directors of the IMD and INEDEC followed, and the AFAIL directors weren't happy with the move.

" While we recognize that this decision may impact the sporting progress of the season, we believe it is proportional to the current circumstances. The actions taken by representatives of the Vikingos Club, in seeking a favorable resolution to unfounded claims outside of official League channels, have resulted in an environment that is unacceptable to the other participating teams ," the AFAIL stated.