October 19, 2019 BST Veracruz players stood on their feet as a full team in the opening minutes of the game as a protest against the club's unpaid wages, and their opponents took advantage of the situation to score two goals.
It is understood that the players at Veracruz were so unhappy with being owed several months' wages that year that they decided to all stake out for three minutes at the start of the game against the Tigers.
The game started with the Tigers scoring 2 goals in 3 minutes. Then the Veracruz players started to play again and the Tigers scored another goal in the 8th minute, Veracruz equalized in the 90th minute and finally lost to the Tigers 1:3.
After the game the Veracruz boss said, "There is nothing wrong with the players wanting to make a statement of claim and once again we are the laughing stock of the nation, if not the world."
The Tiger players received some criticism for their behavior, but their captain Guido Pizarro said, The other team said at first that they would stand for one minute, then it became three minutes, and I told them we would only work with them for one minute.
"I don't think it's right to have your opponents help protest against your own president, and we came here and showed respect for their behavior and did what we had to do."
But Veracruz player Carlos Salcedo didn't think so. The Tiger players have known for a long time that we were going to protest for three minutes, sadly. We are professionals and we all do this work. And you have seen the results.
There is also a lot of controversy over the incident of Veracruz taking to the field and standing on piles, with some saying that Veracruz players are unprofessional and start striking when they are owed a little bit of pay, and others saying that the Tigers only kept their promise of one minute when both sides agreed to three, but for this one the only way to find out who on both sides is lying is for the truth to come out.
