Liga MX Femenil Explained: Two Champions a Year, a Liguilla Decided by Table Position and How to Read Mexico's Women's League on RubiScore

Liga MX Femenil is the top division of women's football in Mexico, played by 18 clubs that are each linked to a men's Liga MX club. Like the men's league, it crowns two champions every year, one in the Apertura and one in the Clausura, through a knockout phase called the liguilla. RubiScore follows the league fixture by fixture, and its unusual rules shape the results in ways that are easy to miss.

The league has grown quickly since its first match in 2017, both in crowds and in the quality of players it attracts. Fixtures, standings and match data for the competition are available at https://rubiscore.com. This guide explains how the league began, how a tournament works and how to read its numbers on RubiScore.

How Did the League Begin?

Mexico had tried to build a professional women's league before, but earlier projects struggled with sponsorship, media coverage and support from the big clubs. The breakthrough came on 5 December 2016, when Liga MX announced that its clubs would field women's teams in a new league.

The first season kicked off on 28 July 2017 with 16 clubs. The rules were strict: squads were built around players under 23, and every player had to be born in Mexico. Guadalajara, known as Chivas, won the first title on 24 November 2017, beating Pachuca in a two-legged final. The two legs drew 28,955 and 32,466 spectators, an early sign of the interest the league would attract.

By the second season all 18 Liga MX clubs had a women's team. Because the league is tied to the men's top flight, its membership changes only when a men's franchise changes. There is no promotion or relegation. For the 2026-27 season, Atlante is expected to take the place left by Mazatlán after the sale of that franchise, which RubiScore reflects in the competition's team list once the club debuts.

How Is a Season Structured?

Each season contains two separate tournaments:

• Apertura (opening). Usually played from July to December.
• Clausura (closing). Usually played from January to May.

Each tournament has its own regular phase and its own champion. Since the 2019-20 season, the regular phase has been a single table of 18 clubs in which every team plays every other team once, giving 17 matchdays. The top eight then enter the liguilla. Competition pages on RubiScore show the table for each tournament separately, which matters because points do not carry over from one tournament to the next.

How Does the Liguilla Work?

The liguilla is the playoff phase, and its rules reward a high finish in the table.

• Quarter-finals. First plays eighth, second plays seventh, and so on.
• Two legs in every round. Each tie is played home and away, including the final.
• The higher seed hosts the second leg. The club that finished higher in the regular phase always plays the return match at home.
• Level ties in the quarter-finals and semi-finals. If the aggregate score is level after 180 minutes, the higher-placed club goes through. There is no extra time, no away goals rule and no penalty shoot-out at these stages.
• Level finals. If the final is level on aggregate, it goes straight to penalties.

The tiebreak rule is the most distinctive feature. A higher seed only needs to match its opponent over two legs, while a lower seed must win. This changes how second legs are played, because the higher-placed team can protect a level score.

How Have the Player Rules Changed?

The league has relaxed its eligibility rules step by step:

• 2017-18. Mexican-born players only, with squads built around under-23s.
• 2018-19. The age limit was raised to under-24.
• 2019-20. Foreign-born Mexican players were allowed, which brought in players from US college soccer, the NWSL and Spain.
• 2021-22. Clubs could register two non-Mexican players.
• 2022-23. That number rose to four.
• 2024-25. A fifth non-Mexican slot was added.
• 2025-26. Clubs could have up to seven non-Mexican players.

To protect young Mexican talent, the league also has a minors rule. For 2025-26, each club had to give Mexican under-20 players at least 1,260 minutes of playing time per tournament.

Who Has Won It?

As of the end of the Clausura 2026, five clubs have won the title. Tigres UANL lead with seven championships, followed by Monterrey, América, Guadalajara and Pachuca. América won the Clausura 2026, beating Monterrey 3-1 on aggregate in the final.

The rivalry between Tigres and Monterrey, both from the Monterrey metropolitan area, has produced some of the league's biggest occasions. The second leg of the Clausura 2018 final between the two clubs at Estadio BBVA drew 51,211 fans, at the time the largest crowd for a club match in women's football. Later finals at Estadio Azteca have drawn even bigger attendances.

What About Continental Competition?

Liga MX Femenil sends three clubs to the CONCACAF W Champions Cup, the continental club competition launched by CONCACAF in 2024. The places go to the Apertura champion, the Clausura champion and the best runner-up, based on total points across the regular phases of both tournaments.

This gives the combined season table a purpose, even though the league itself awards two separate titles.

How Does It Compare With Other Women's Leagues?

Liga MX Femenil sits between two common models in women's football:

• Against the NWSL. Both leagues are closed, with no promotion or relegation, and both use playoffs. The NWSL crowns one champion per season, while Liga MX Femenil crowns two.
• Against the Women's Super League. The WSL decides its champion by the final league table and has relegation to the second tier. Every match in the WSL season counts towards the title in the same way.
• Against the Première Ligue. France also uses play-offs to decide its champion, but it plays one long regular season rather than two short tournaments.

The two-tournament calendar is the clearest difference. It produces more title-deciding matches each year, but each champion is decided over a shorter run of games. When comparing clubs across leagues, it helps to remember that a Liga MX Femenil title represents a 17-match regular phase plus a knockout run, not a full season.

How Should Liga MX Femenil Data Be Read?

The structure creates several traps for anyone comparing teams.

• Short tournaments mean small samples. Seventeen matches is less than half of a typical European league season. Strong or weak runs can distort a table quickly.
• Table position has real value. Because the higher seed goes through on a level aggregate, finishing fourth rather than fifth can decide a quarter-final. Late regular-phase matches often matter more than their league position suggests.
• Read second legs in context. A higher seed that draws a second leg may have done exactly what it needed to do. A draw is not always a sign of weakness. Match pages on RubiScore show both legs, so the aggregate and the seeding can be read together.
• Squads change between tournaments. Transfers and new signings arrive in the short break between the Apertura and the Clausura, so a club's form may not carry over.
• Minutes rules shape line-ups. Clubs must meet their under-20 minutes requirement, which can explain why some young players start more often than expected.
• Compare like with like. Records from 2017-18 and 2018-19, when the league used groups, are not directly comparable with the single-table era.

A Worked Example

Imagine a hypothetical quarter-final between the club that finished first and the club that finished eighth. The eighth-placed club wins the first leg 1-0 at home. In the second leg, the first-placed club wins 1-0.

The aggregate score is 1-1. There is no extra time and no shoot-out. The first-placed club advances because of its higher finish. For the eighth-placed club, a 1-0 defeat away from home was not enough. It needed to win the tie outright on aggregate.

In a European competition with a penalty shoot-out, the same scores would lead to a very different end to the tie. That is why liguilla results must be read with the tiebreak rule in mind.

The Short Version

Liga MX Femenil is an 18-club league with no promotion or relegation, two tournaments a year and a playoff system that strongly rewards a high regular-phase finish. Its rules on age and nationality have opened up step by step, and its crowds have set records for club women's football. Reading its results well means tracking each tournament separately, respecting small samples and remembering that in the liguilla a level aggregate favours the higher seed.