Barcelona player Mario Pineida was murdered on Wednesday, December 17 in an armed attack in the north of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s most populous and violent city, the Interior Ministry and the club confirmed.
“Barcelona Sporting Club informs, with deep regret, that it has been officially notified of the death of our player Mario Pineida, which occurred after an attack against him,” the institution said in a statement.
Armed attack against Mario Pineida
🚨UPDATE MARIO PINEIDA DEATH🥺🙏🏽
➡️Los two guys go straight to shoot Mario, but especially Guisella Fernandez 🇵🇪 39 years old
➡️Según #PoliciaNacional the player’s partner had a local de📲 and received previous threats
94.5📻
https://t.co/aphPd0nGXV
– Jorge Régulo De Mora (@ReguloDe17) December 18, 2025
The club said they were “deeply saddened” by the news and that they were “saddened as a Barcelona family”.
He also indicated that in the next few hours they will inform about the events to be held in his memory.
“We ask our partners, fans and the public to raise a prayer for the repose of his soul and for strength for his entire family in this moment of intense grief,” Barcelona added.
The incident occurred outside a commercial establishment in Samanes 4, in the north of Guayaquil, where the police arrived to begin investigations.
Mario Pineida, 33, was born in the Ecuadorian town of Santo Domingo de Los Tsáchilas and was a national team member from U-15 to senior level.
He began his soccer career at Independiente del Valle, as a right or left back between 2010 and 2015.
After playing for El Valle, he joined Barcelona in 2016 and became one of its stars. In 2022 he moved to Fluminense of Brazil.
Mario Pineida also played in 2024 with El Nacional, Quito, and later returned to Barcelona, where he was training for the last game of the year, scheduled for next Sunday against Independiente del Valle.
Colonel Édison Palacios, police chief in the area, explained that two people on board two motorcycles arrived at the site and shot Mario Pineida and two women, who, according to the officer, were his partner and his mother.
The player’s partner also died, while his mother was injured, but is “out of danger”, said Palacios, who assured that security cameras in the area would be reviewed to clarify the incident.
Several of his teammates arrived at the scene to show their solidarity with his family and several clubs and even the Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF) mourned his death on their official channels.
So far this year there have been at least four armed attacks against professional club soccer players in Ecuador.
Among them, on September 19, when midfielder Jonathan ‘Speedy’ González, of the 22 de Julio club, which plays in the country’s second division, was murdered in the province of Esmeraldas, on the border with Colombia.
Since 2024, Ecuador has been living under an “internal armed conflict” declared by President Daniel Noboa to intensify the fight against criminal gangs, to which the government attributes the escalation of violence in the Andean country in recent years.
A situation that has worsened in 2025, with an average of one murder per hour.
With information from EFE
