CFL’S Mexico partners want seat at XFL talks

When the Canadian Football League sought to expand its global footprint, the important first step was taken in Mexico.

CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie forged a partnership and friendship with Liga de Futbol Americano Profesional (LFA) owner Oscar Perez and commissioner Alejandro Jaimes. Their working agreement, signed during Grey Cup week in 2018, was the first of more than a dozen and the CFL has since established business connections in Europe, Asia and South America.

Were it not for the pandemic and a lost 2020 season, the so-called CFL 2.0 initiative might have borne more fruit than a single Mexican TV deal, several player combines, a couple of global drafts, and one impactful global player, Winnipeg Blue Bomber Thiadric Hansen.

Instead, the CFL leadership has pivoted and is focused on two fronts; a return to play in 2021 and the negotiation of a potential game-changing merger with XFL ownership. As those XFL talks intensify and evolve, the CFL’S international alliance partners wait to find out if there is a role for them to play. The LFA leadership is particularly hopeful and confident that no other international partner is as well positioned to do just that.

“Randy says he is always thinking of Mexico,” Jaimes said last month. “We told him that we are so close that it should be more probable that the XFL and CFL and LFA should make something. We have two strengths. We have the same football as the XFL, the same rules. And we are neighbours now.

“We want to be in the conversation. The CFL has told us they are going to put us at the table, but I think it’s just beginning. I think we are in the formula.”