Soccer referee Javier Ortega was killed on the pitch during an amateur match in a horrifying scene on Sunday.
Reports from the Ecuadorian amateur game in Pasaje in the province of El Oro say that multiple gunmen approached Ortega, 48, shooting him at least once.
Emergency responders declared him dead at the scene.
Players and fans scrambled for safety, with the match quickly being abandoned.
The shooters fled the scene and remain at large, with police investigating the murder as a potential “targeted hit,” per The Sun.
“We are currently reviewing mobile phone footage and interviewing witnesses to identify the perpetrators,” investigators said. “This is a cold-blooded crime committed in a space meant for community and sport.”
It’s another chapter in a brutal recent history of soccer-related violence in Ecuador.
In December, Ecuadorian national team player Mario Pineda was killed in a shooting that also took the life of his partner and wounded his mother as he exited a butcher shop in the Samanes neighborhood of Guayaquil. Two men suspected were arrested in the days following the incident.
A month before, a 16-year-old soccer player died from a stray bullet, while in September 2025, Expapromo Cosa players Maicol Valencia and Leandro Yépez and Jonathan Gonzales of 22 de Julio FC were all killed in multiple shooting incidents.
Per AFP, the homicide rate of six per 100,000 people in 2018 rose to a record high of 47 in 2023.
That number dipped to 38 in 2024, with an “influx of gangs” cited as a contributing factor.
