When Club Tijuana won Mexico’s soccer championship on Sunday, a local Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) politician had more reason to celebrate than even the most dedicated fan.
Tijuana claimed successive 2-1 and 2-0 victories over ten-time champions Toluca on Thursday and Sunday to win its first national title, only 18 months after gaining promotion to Mexico’s top professional league, the Liga MX.
This was no mean feat for the club founded just five years ago by controversial gambling magnate and former Tijuana Mayor, Jorge Hank Rhon.
Hank, whose son Jorge Hank Inzunza runs the soccer franchise commonly known as “Xolos” (short for Xoloitzcuintles, Mexican hairless dogs) revealed last week that he will run for the Baja California governorship in next year’s state election. A win for Xolos, he had said, would boost his popularity in the polls.
“Xolos are obviously the team of Baja California, but also the team of the PRI,” Hank said, ahead of the final. “The rise of Xolos … brings votes for the party, and for me in the race for governor.”
The PRI will need any additional support it can muster, having not won the Baja California governorship since the election of National Action Party (PAN) candidate Ernesto Ruffo Appel in 1989. Ruffo was the first opposition-party governor of any state since the Mexican Revolution.
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