The express trip to Querétaro by Laura López and her husband with their three children became the most disastrous episode of her life. When this 29-year-old Atlas fan entered the Corregidora stadium, she had no idea that she would end up jumping the seats of the stadium shouting “Sons of bitches!” López had to flee to the pitch due to the attacks by the Querétaro radicals on the Atlas fans in the stands. “They are going to be worth mother, this is paid with death because they are in our stadium!” the woman heard. A cry, another one, in a Mexico engulfed by the violence that intrudes in every corner.
“Alan, my son, told me: “I am very scared, my chest hurts”. My daughters would not stop crying. With a lot of impotence, I just told them that nothing was going to happen, ”López added this Sunday while standing guard in front of the General Hospital of Querétaro waiting for information about his injured friends. According to the Querétaro authorities, there were only 26 injured, three of them seriously, despite the fact that the images of brutality among the radicals presaged a higher figure, including deaths. There are not a few, especially in the vicinity of the hospital and among the followers of both teams, who question the version of the authorities more than a day after the serious incidents. As of Sunday night, no arrests had yet been reported, although an investigation is already underway by the Querétaro Prosecutor’s Office. On Sunday night, the local government reported the suspension of five public officials in charge of the security operation.
In the Blue and White Resistance bar in Querétaro there are about 3,500 members, according to figures given by the club’s president, Gabriel Solares. For this match, up to 600 private security personnel were employed to try to control everything. It was an absolute failure. The radicals launched themselves in pursuit against each shirt with the shield of Atlas, the last champion of Mexican soccer. Atlas fans were showing off their championship, their second in 70 years, against a club that has never won one. That was one of the reasons that the gunpowder lit. The rivalry between the two clubs had already had episodes of violence since 2007, but never of the caliber of what happened this Saturday. After this day, Solares announced that these groups will be eradicated.
“I remember the screams and the images of how a group of 10 people beat one person. I saw a family of dad, mom and son who were running. The father did not know whether to protect his wife or his son. Another girl had to get on top of her boyfriend’s body so they would stop hitting her. There were people who were left without moving, people not bloodied, but in complete puddles of blood, ”says Jorge Ortiz, an Atlas fan.
Less than 500 meters from the La Corregidora stadium is a National Guard station, the security project of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and also the Red Cross offices. Fans, however, have noted that they were left unprotected. “Before the game there were many policemen, but when all the chaos happened they never entered the field,” says Ana Gabriela Ruiz, 32, who was watching the game with her father-in-law, her partner and her son. “It smelled like gunpowder, there were two people from the Gallos club who threw a smoke bomb. From then on there were increasingly aggressive verbal discussions. We did not take importance to it, we thought it was something isolated, ”says the woman.
Different testimonies collected by EL PAÍS have confirmed that among the fans of Querétaro they used knives, ice picks and sticks to attack their rivals. “One person was carrying a steel plate. There were people from the Atlas who begged for mercy so they wouldn’t do anything to them. Two security girls also asked them not to hit them because they didn’t bring anything to defend themselves,” says Ruiz. “They searched us, they took everything from us. We don’t go in with nothing. They let them in with all kinds of things. Why didn’t they stop it?” complains Laura López.
The shock of the violence forced the president of Liga MX, Mikel Arriola, to travel to Querétaro. There he assured that he will present a strategy to prevent the Mexican barra bravas from entering visiting stadiums and announced that the Corregidora stadium is banned until the investigations are completed. In addition, FIFA condemned the events that occurred in Mexico, one of the venues for the 2026 World Cup along with the United States and Canada.
Nadia Breña doesn’t particularly like soccer, but she saw the horror scenes and looked for a way to help. She brought food to offer to the families of the wounded. “I don’t want them to think that in Querétaro we are murderers or violent. You can see the Ukraine and Russia, it is a conflict that is very far away, but the real problems are here”, she opines. “I will not return to a football field. My children are first. I had never seen something so cruel,” summarizes López. Querétaro is still in mourning.
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