Mexico's Football Federation Sues Kalshi in New York Over Its Use of the Liga MX Name

The Federación Mexicana de Fútbol has filed a trademark suit against Kalshi in federal court in Manhattan, after two months of cease-and-desist letters that the exchange answered by invoking nominative fair use. The case opens an intellectual property front that Kalshi's many fights with state regulators have not touched.

• The Federación Mexicana de Fútbol Asociación (FMF) filed a complaint against Kalshi Inc. and KalshiEX LLC in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on 22 September, case number 1:26-cv-08259, according to the court docket
• According to Gambling Insider's account of the complaint, the FMF is seeking a temporary restraining order, preliminary and permanent injunctions to stop Kalshi using the Liga MX mark and club names, and damages including Kalshi's profits
• The federation says Kalshi kept using Liga MX and club names after cease-and-desist letters in July and August, and objects that Kalshi's market rules use FMF data to settle contracts without permission
• Kalshi has argued that naming Liga MX to identify its contracts is nominative fair use, removing logos and adding disclaimers but keeping the names, according to the complaint as reported
• The suit adds a trademark dispute to the state and federal litigation over Kalshi's sports contracts, and arrives the day after the CFTC's staff advisory on mention markets

A Governing Body Takes the Exchange to Court

Mexico's football federation, which runs Liga MX, filed its complaint against Kalshi Inc. and KalshiEX LLC in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, 22 September. The court docket lists the case as Federación Mexicana de Fútbol Asociación, A.C. v. Kalshi Inc., No. 1:26-cv-08259, with the complaint, a civil cover sheet and a request for summonses filed the same day by Martin Krezalek of the law firm Blank Rome. The complaint itself was not publicly available through the free RECAP archive at the time of writing; the details below are as reported by Gambling Insider, which has reviewed it.

According to that account, the FMF asks the court for a temporary restraining order and for preliminary and permanent injunctions stopping Kalshi from using the Liga MX trademark and club names on its website and apps, and seeks damages including profits it says Kalshi earned from the alleged infringement. The federation argues that the use could lead customers to believe the exchange is officially affiliated with Liga MX or its clubs. It also objects that "Kalshi's market rules designate FMF's data as the facts that determine whether a wager wins or loses", data it says it never licensed to the exchange.

Two Months of Letters

The complaint, as reported, sets out an exchange of correspondence that began on 17 July, when the FMF's general counsel sent a cease-and-desist letter about the Liga MX logo, club logos and other marks. Kalshi replied on 21 July that its use was nominative fair use, removed some logos and added disclaimers, and kept the names; its general counsel told the federation the matter was "closed". Further letters followed from the FMF on 27 July and from Blank Rome on 18 August, and Kalshi rejected the federation's position again on 1 September, comparing its use of the Liga MX name to investment firms naming Apple to identify a stock.

The FMF's answer is Kalshi's own practice elsewhere. According to the complaint as reported, the exchange lists Major League Baseball as "Pro Baseball", the Super Bowl as "Pro Football Champion" or "The Big Game", MLB clubs by city and UFC events as "MMA". Kalshi's response is that Mexican cities have clubs in several professional divisions, so a city name alone would leave customers unsure which team a contract covers. Gambling Insider also noted that Kalshi removed "March Madness", "Sweet Sixteen" and "Final Four" earlier this year after the NCAA objected.

Nominative Fair Use Is a Real Defence, and the Settlement Data Is the Harder Question

Kalshi's position is not weak on its face. US trademark law generally allows a business to use another's name where that is the only practical way to identify the thing it refers to, provided it uses no more than necessary and does not suggest endorsement. Stripping logos and adding disclaimers is what that defence usually requires, and a court may accept that "Club América" cannot sensibly be described any other way. The FMF's stronger ground may be the second complaint: that contracts are settled on federation data used without a licence. That argument goes to the economics of the product rather than its labels, and it is the same point on which sports bodies have pressed sportsbooks for official data rights.

Leagues Now Have a Lever the States Do Not

Kalshi's defence against state gambling regulators rests on federal preemption: a CFTC-regulated exchange, it argues, is outside state gambling law. That argument has nothing to say about trademarks or data rights, which apply to it as to anyone else. If the FMF wins even part of its case, other leagues that dislike seeing their names on event contracts will have a route that does not depend on how the preemption fight ends. If it loses, exchanges will have confirmation that plain-text identification of a competition is enough.

The case is at its first filing, and Kalshi has not yet answered in court. Whatever the outcome, the governing bodies whose competitions exchanges list have started to test what they can control.