Pachuca is soccer. The city, the group and the team in a comprehensive way that forms a spherical business of global claim. How many Asturians knew the word Pachuca just over two weeks ago, when the group of the same name bought 51% of Real Oviedo from the Mexican group Carso, owned by Carlos Slim from Creso?
The name was there in pre-Columbian times. It is not known if it means hay place, narrow place and some other possibilities.
The city was founded in the mid-15th century by a Mexica group. The Spanish appeared there around 1519. Historian Peter Gerhard says that they controlled the region in 1521. Thirty years later they discovered the silver mines and it grew.
Pachuca de Soto is the capital and most populous city of the Free and Sovereign State of Hidalgo, one of the 31 that, together with Mexico City, make up Mexico. Hidalgo, divided into 84 municipalities, has 3 million inhabitants. Pachuca approaches 300,000
The name of Pachuca has been linked to soccer since November 1, 1892, when English miners created the Pachuca Football Club. Along with other teams, they formed the Mexican League of Amateur Football Association in 1902. Until 1908 there was not a Mexican player. In 1915 the majority were Mexicans and they won titles.
In 1950 the Second Division of Mexico was created and the Pachuca AC team was founded, which disappeared two years later. In 1960 a group of fans created the Pachuca Soccer Club that continues to this day.
Grupo Pachuca was born in 1995 when Jesús Martínez Patiño bought the Tuzos soccer franchise for about $100,000 from the Hidalgo government. The governor was Jesús Murillo Karam, a top-tier politician and close friend. The operation was criticized because it received free public land where the Pachuca Group built its High Performance Center and its University. Those 100,000 dollars today are close to fifty million, more than three thousand employees and one of the most important business groups in Mexico.
The Pachuca group is an organization based on soccer in four areas: sports, academic, commercial and social. Its main clubs now are Pachuca and León of Liga MX, the Mexican first division. In the Liga de Expansión MX -founded in 2020 as part of the “Stabilization Project”, to rescue second division teams with financial problems- they have the Coyotes de Tlaxcala. Outside of Mexico, they own Everton from Chile and Atlético Atenas de San Carlos from the Uruguayan Second Division.
This timeshare, very characteristic of Mexico, has FIFA against it. The highest body in world soccer does not want the same person to be involved with two clubs simultaneously and has asked for it to be finished before the 2026 World Cup.
The jewel of Pachuca is the University of Soccer and Sports Sciences, which has taught 55,000 courses, has 60 certified teachers; 2,240 students enrolled and 215 courses completed.
Training to ensure that athletes have preparation with which to defend themselves in life when they leave it, offers primary, secondary, high school, nine degrees in administration, psychology, communication sciences, nutrition and physical education; five master’s degrees in sports science, marketing, physical therapy and gastronomy and a doctorate. Its business model was studied at the Pan-American Institute of Senior Business Management (IPADE) and Harvard University.
The jeweler expands with the Center of Medical Excellence in Height, one of the two in the country endorsed by FIFA. It has the services of a hospital, including a psychological care center and medical specialties of traumatology and orthopedics with shoulder, spine, knee, hand, hip, foot and ankle surgery: pediatric orthopedics, ophthalmology, plastic and reconstructive surgery, sports medicine, otorhinolaryngology, gynecology, pediatrics, general surgery, normal and pediatric cardiology, gastroenterology, general and family medicine, oncology, emergency, urology, internal medicine, anesthesiology, coloproctology and neurosurgery.
The group is a soccer player trainer with more than 300 basic forces academies (quarries) and diversifies into the Grupo Bife restaurant chain and the Marpa tire brand.
The Pachuca group and the Carso Group maintained a fruitful relationship from 2012 to 2017 until Carlos Slim wanted to increase his role in the Jesús Martínez Patiño conglomerate.
Carlos Slim and Grupo Carso initially invested 100 million dollars – 15% of the shares of Grupo Pachuca – which went to Club Pachuca, León and the Universidad del Fútbol. They were used to buy Talleres (Argentina), Everton (Chile), Coyotes (Tlaxcala) and Mineros (Zacatecas). To recover 30% of the shares, Jesús Martínez paid 200 million dollars to Slim
The differences began when Slim told Martínez that he wanted to buy 49% of Grupo Pachuca and in the future, everything, to be able to decide and to place Arturo Elías Ayub [que fue máximo accionista del Oviedo y la cara visible de su suegro] in the presidency of León, occupied by the son of Martínez. They also wanted more participation in the University of Soccer, something that Gabriela Murguía, Martínez’s wife and the center’s rector, categorically refused. Relations between groups remain respectful.
Since 1999, the Hidalgo stadium, the main stadium in the state, has been administered by the Pachuca Group, which covered its remodeling and maintenance costs.
They also have the Mundo Fútbol Interactive Center, a football museum that was to be the Museum of Contemporary Art and was built for that purpose in 2005, but in 2010 the Hidalgo government ceded the building to the Pachuca Group, because it was abandoned.
The building is shaped like a ball and has housed the Football Hall of Fame since July 2011. It has a covered parking lot of 1,406 square meters and 1,010 more terraces, to which must be added administrative areas, an auditorium, an access plaza, an elevator one piece, halls and outdoor area.
Its exhibition area is 1,680 square meters in four thematic rooms and more than fifty interactive exhibitions that offer physical activities, workshops, projections, audio and interactive multimedia.
The FIFA Tunnel that gives access to the venue simulates the entrance to the stadium of a professional player. In the first area, the history of football and its origins are discussed. In the second, professional training practices are simulated that put physical skills to the test. In the third there is a human table football, billiards ball, shots to a virtual goalkeeper and more. In the fourth area, it is simulated to be a professional player, with interviews to the media, real television set, radio booth, magazines and social networks. It has a 3D room and a mini stadium.
In the Pachuca group, everything is football, but football is more than football.
