A mystery surrounds the discovery of the lifeless body of Julio Cesar Sotela Canales, a Guanacaste native known as an athlete, entrepreneur and former owner of the Liberia Mia football team. The late Mr. Sotela was found on the banks of the Colorado River, apparently the victim of a brutal beating that has shocked football fans in Guanacaste and across Costa Rica.

When employees and groundskeepers of the Rancho Curubande recreational farm found Mr. Sotela as they walked near the river, he had already passed. His vehicle was found a few kilometers away in Barrio Nazareth. Officers from the Liberia detachment of Fuerza Publica, Costa Rica’s national police force, arrived quickly and alerted agents from the local Organization of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) office, who immediately launched a murder investigation into Mr. Sotela’s demise.

The motives for Mr. Sotela’s murder are not clear at this point since the vehicle was abandoned. An initial hypothesis is that Mr. Sotela was victim of a carjacking gone wrong, and that the assailants later realized that they had attacked a highly respected man in Guanacaste -thus deciding to abandon the vehicle.

As reported by Carlos Castro Gamboa of tabloid daily Diario Extra, relatives are reluctant to speculate on the motives of this ghastly murder. Mr. Sotela was a restless athlete and businessman who loved to ride the challenging mountain bike trails of Guanacaste, and who was also known for his effort behind the Africa Mia theme park, a wildlife refuge that aimed to keep traditionally African species in Costa Rica.

Under Mr. Sotela’s chairmanship, the Liberia Mia football club reached the First Division in Costa Rica, but the team often ran into financial or administrative issues. After a franchise trade, the team descended to the Second Division and would later become more closely representative of the municipality of Liberia.

The Costa Rica Star recently reported on the efforts by Guanacaste football teams to return to the First Division, which is something that Mr. Sotela would love to have seen. His sad passing is a grim reminder of the ongoing intrusion of violence into professional football in Costa Rica.