Five footballers murdered in Ecuador in 2025: mafias and betting threaten sport
Mario Pineida, of Barcelona Sporting Club, was murdered on 17 December in Guayaquil, becoming the fifth fatal victim among Ecuadorian players in 2025.
Ecuadorian football, target of hitmen and sports betting mafias
Ecuador's police force confirmed the detention of two people linked to the murder of Mario Pineida, a footballer for Barcelona Sporting Club shot dead on 17 December in a butcher's shop in the Samanes sector, north of Guayaquil. According to elpais.com, Pineida is the fifth fatal victim among football players in what is already shaping up to be the most violent year in the country's history.
Security cameras at the premises recorded the sequence of the attack. A hitman dressed in black approached Pineida calmly and fired at least a dozen times as the footballer raised his arms, apparently believing it was a robbery. A second attacker, wearing a motorcycle helmet, approached the player's partner, who was a few metres away, and also shot her repeatedly. Before fleeing, the first hitman returned to the woman's body and fired again.
Four murders before Pineida
The year had begun with an attack in January against Richard Mina, of Liga de Quito, wounded in an alleged robbery in Guayaquil, although he survived. In September the violence intensified dramatically. Maicol Valencia and Leandro Yépez, from club Exapromo Costa, were murdered in a hotel in Manta, on the central coast of the country. Barely a week later, Jonathan González, 31 years old, was shot in the head at his home in Esmeraldas, a city on the border with Colombia.
The case of González exposed the connection between sports betting networks and Ecuadorian football. The player had been pressured to lose a match that ultimately ended in a draw; his refusal cost him his life.
Threats, fixing and survivors
Three other footballers survived armed attacks during 2025. Ariel Suárez, 21 years old, from club Orense, came out alive from an attack in Machala, although his partner was left in critical condition. Bryan Angulo, of Liga de Portoviejo, escaped unharmed from an attempted attack while heading to training.
In November, the murder of Miguel Nazareno shook the country once again. The player was just 16 years old and was executed with a shot to the head inside his own home in Guayaquil.
Guayaquil, epicentre of violence
Guayaquil accounts for the majority of the attacks. The city is considered the most violent in Ecuador, and violence unfolds in any environment: hotels, homes, neighbourhood butcher's shops. The pressure from sports betting mafias to fix matches has transformed Ecuadorian professional football into a high-risk domain, where corruption and the threat of hitmen condition the daily activities of players.
The combination of extortion linked to betting, the presence of criminal organisations and the authorities' inability to halt the escalation has structurally transformed the atmosphere of football in the country. Players, at all levels—from young prospects to leading figures of the most important clubs—now rank among the targets of the mafias.
Source: Google News EC — Guayaquil