Ciudad Juarez, a city on the Mexican-US border, has endured more than 2,500 murders in 2009 and registers the highest rate of organized crime activity in the country.

The Indios club is bottom of the standings in the Mexican Clausura and is certain to be relegated to the second tier.

“My players ... I'm not going to say any names, but some have been extorted. Their families aren't in Juarez,” Indios president Francisco Ibarra said at a press conference late Monday without offering further details.

“Our third choice goalkeeper was here one day and gone the next because he received death threats, and bad people were demanding money from him.” Sergio Belmonte, a spokesman for Ciudad Juarez city hall, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that football players were logical targets for the violence in the city that authorities attribute to warring drug cartels.

“We don't doubt this has happened because it's a problem that affects every sector,” Belmonte said. “There's certainly a state of insecurity that they can't escape, being public figures.”