Sunday, February 20, 2011
A Guatemalan football executive has been shot dead after he left a team meeting in the town of Huehuetenango. Deportivo Xinabajul vice-president Carlos Noe Gomez was killed by two men waiting for him as he left after the meeting. Several weeks before the shooting Gomez reported being threatened.
Gomez started receiving the death threats weeks before the shooting over the poor performence of Deportivo Xinabajul. Xinabajul currently lies at the bottom of Guatemala’s national football league. The club also suffered a 2–0 defeat to Suchitepequez earlier in the week.
The Guatemalan national football league spoke out against the shooting asking for the investigation to be “serious and profound”. Prosecutor Nery Martinez released a statement saying that the investigation will be focusing on the death threats Gomez received from fans.
The shooting of Gomez comes four months after the discovery of the body of Carlos Mercedes Vasquez, a footballer who played for Malacateco. He had been killed and chopped up, the note left by his body stated that he had been killed after he was “messing with other women.”