San Salvador: Alfredo Pacheco, a soccer player who played for the Salvadoran national side before being banned from the sport for life for his involvement in match-fixing, was murdered on Sunday, the Salvadoran attorney general's office said.

Pacheco, 33, was with a group of friends chatting in a petrol station when an unknown assailant shot at the group various times, authorities said.

Two other people were injured and were taken to a nearby hospital in the city of Santa Ana, west of the capital. Police, though, did not provide a motive for his killing. "The attorney general's office in Santa Ana processed the crime scene of the murder of Alfredo Pacheco at 3.30 am in a petrol station," it said.

Pacheco was a defender who played for the Salvadoran clubs, Club Deportivo FAS and Asociacion Deportiva Isidro Metapan. He also played for the New York Red Bulls in the United States.

Pacheco was the player with the most caps for the Salvadoran national team. He was banned from the sport by the Salvadoran soccer federation in 2013 when it was found he had been involved in match-fixing.

He represented his country 86 times between 2002 and 2013. The left-back spent a decade with club FAS in his hometown of Santa Ana, during which he went out on loan for a short spell to New York Red Bulls, before returning to his homeland to play for Aguila and Isidro Metapan.

A statement from the Salvadorian football federation (FESFUT) said: "The Salvadoran Football Federation laments the passing of former player Alfredo Pacheco. We share in the pain and say a prayer for his grieving family."

The troubled South American country, which borders Guatemala and Honduras, saw its highest murder rate in August this year since the 12-year civil war which ended in 1992. Thirty murders on average were taking place a day, according to the National Forensics Institute.

The country's police have estimated that 80 per cent of homicides relate to rivalry between the country's gangs.

Incidentally, it was in this month itself that another footballer from South America - Arnold Peralta of Honduras - was shot to death in La Ceiba. Peralta, 26, was attacked by several men as he got into his car at a shopping centre in his birth city, 185 km north of the capital Tegucigalpa, a region noted for drug cartel activity.

Peralta, who played for top Honduran club Olimpia after spending the 2013-14 season with Scottish Championship (second-tier) side Glasgow Rangers, was in the Honduras squad taking part in Concacaf 2018 World Cup qualifying.

The demise of both Pacheco and Peralta recalled the murder in 1994 of Colombia defender Andres Escobar in Medellin days after his country's first-round elimination at the World Cup in the United States, following a 2-1 defeat to the hosts in which he scored an own goal.

Pacheco had made his professional debut on March 3, 2001, in a league game against C.D. Municipal Limeno. In 2005, he was named captain of the team. He began his international career with El Salvador's U-20 national team in 2000.

He took part in the 2003 Concacaf U-20 tournament. Unfortunately, El Salvador failed to qualify for the Fifa World Youth Championship that was to be held in the United Arab Emirates. (Agencies)