Banned soccer star shot dead

A former New York soccer star who was banned from the game for life for his involvement in match fixing has been shot dead in El Salvador.

Alfredo Pacheco, 33, was chatting with a group of friends chatting in a petrol station when an unknown assailant shot at the group various times, authorities said.

Pacheco – who spent a season at New York Red Bulls and is the most-capped Salvadorian soccer player in history – was murdered, the country’s attorney general’s office said.

He leaves behind his wife and five children, who he lived with in the United States.

Pacheco was one of two people taken to a nearby hospital in the city of Santa Ana, west of the capital San Salvador, before he was pronounced dead.

‘The attorney general’s office in Santa Ana processed the crime scene of the murder of Alfredo Pacheco at 3.30am in a petrol station,’ it said.
Pacheco was a defender who played for the Salvadoran clubs Club Deportivo FAS and Asociacion Deportiva Isidro Metapan.

He spent a season on loan at the Red Bulls in 2009, playing for the team 14 times in one of their worst ever years.

Pacheco was banned from the sport by the Salvadoran football federation in 2013 when it was found he had been involved in match fixing.
El Salvador has seen its murder rate skyrocket this year, with homicides up 55 per cent compared with last year. So far this year, there have been 6,068 murders, according to police data.