The directors of Leones Negros, Correcaminos, and Venados de Mérida will go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, and for this purpose, they have placed the case in the hands of lawyers who have handled cases for Lionel Messi and Neymar.
In an interview with ESPN, Alberto Castellanos, president of Leones Negros, revealed that the legal strategy will be handled by two top-level sports lawyers, with whom they have had some experience in the past.
"We have tried to exhaust all avenues to make those who made decisions at the time aware and presenting arguments in all the spaces where we had to do so. Now, the only option left for us is the legal one. We are trying to go through this route with the best possible advice. We are hiring two firms, one Spanish and one Argentine, with a lot of experience, and we will do it jointly with the Correcaminos club and the Venados club from Mérida. This is the front that has been organized to assert our rights and try to reverse this decision that was made to eliminate the possibility for Ascenso teams to enter the Liga BBVA MX through sports merit."
Juan de Dios Crespo and Ariel Reck are the lawyers who will take charge of the case. Both defended Lionel Messi before FIFA in 2017 and showed that there were no legal grounds to act ex officio against alleged insults from the Barcelona player to a referee, after a Conmebol qualifying match.
Crespo legally represented Neymar when PSG paid the €222 million clause to take him to play in French football.
"We worked with Ariel Reck at some point in the only case we took to the CAS, and we won. But we know about his experience and the joint work with Juan de Dios Crespo in cases they have taken on for Messi and Neymar, and we believe that together with the lawyers representing each of the clubs, in the case of Leones Negros, it is Martín Campechano, we can put together an interesting team to bring this case to a successful conclusion," said Castellanos.
"We are seeking the best possible advice, and by assembling this legal team, I am confident that everything necessary will be done to fight in this instance, which is the last one we have," said the director of the university team.
Castellanos also confirmed that, if this recourse does not proceed before the CAS, Leones Negros will continue in the Development League since there are valid contracts with the players that must be honored.