After the dispute over the Colombian second division football match between Club Tigres and Atlético Cali, the president of the Tigres team, Édgar Páez, was murdered by assassins while walking near the Metropolitano de Techo stadium.
Páez was attacked while traveling in a Mazda 2 vehicle with his daughter. The assassins reached the vehicle and shot Páez several times. According to witnesses, the murderers were riding a white motorcycle.
According to the Bogotá Metropolitan Police report, the sports director was shot in the chest, head and neck. After the attack, Páez was taken to the Méderi Clinic, where he could no longer bear the severity of his injuries and died.
Páez was coach of the Bogotá team in 2016 when it managed to gain promotion to the highest category of Colombian football, the same category it lost in 2017. In recent days the results have not been in their favor and they found themselves in second to last place in the promotion tournament.
The incident comes at the worst moment in Dimayor, where the Industry and Commerce Regulatory Authority is investigating an alleged cartel in women’s football.
Such murders of football leaders are nothing new in Colombia; they have happened before. Millonarios’ vice president, Guillermo Gómez Melgarejo, was assassinated in 1992 in a restaurant north of Bogotá as he prepared for lunch.
Medellín President José Pablo Correa Ramos was assassinated in the early 1980s while leading a softball practice in 1986.
Gustavo Upegui, Envigado’s main shareholder, was also killed on his farm in 2006.
Jorge Arturo Bustamante, director of Medellín, Envigado and Cúcuta, was killed by hitmen in a stadium near Medellín in 1992 while he was with his friends.
Also assassinated was Antonio Roldán Betancur, who was briefly president of Atlético Nacional in 1984 before becoming governor of Antioquia.
Octavio Piedrahita, who was president of Deportivo Pereira and Nacional, also suffered the same fate and was assassinated in 1988.
