QUITO — In Ecuador, football is a deadly sport, with players competing in the shadow of match-fixing mafias and under threat of an assassin’s bullet.

Midfielder Jonathan Gonzalez, 31, was relaxing at his home near the Colombian border this month when a hitman approached on a motorcycle and shot him in the head.

“Speedy,” as he was known to teammates, had played for the Club 22 de Julio, a second division side from Esmeraldas, and was one of three Ecuadoran pros killed in the last month alone.

He was “a good kid who died because of betting,” club employee Oswaldo Batallas told AFP.

Gonzalez’s death shocked the club and Ecuador, but it was not a total surprise.

Just days before, fellow second division pros Maicol Valencia and Leandro Yepez were gunned down at a hotel on the coast.

Valenica died at the scene, Yepez made it to the hospital, but did not survive. Both played for Exapromo Costa.

Days before his own death, Gonzalez had received chilling warnings of what was to come.

His car was shot up, and his mother received threats.

Then a mafia linked to online betting allegedly pressured him to lose a match—which ended in a 1-1 draw.

Police are still investigating the deaths of all three men.

Dollarised, beautiful and welcoming to visitors, Ecuador has long been a popular getaway home for mafiosos.

But since the country has become a major transit hub for Colombian cocaine, it has attracted narcos and gangsters in droves.

Competition between local groups affiliated with Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, Italy’s Andrageta, Albania’s mafia and host of others has turned Latin America’s safest country into one of its most deadly.