Lionel Messi is coming to the United States
to play football.
I know it sounds like a mistake, but it’s true: the most decorated player in sports history is taking his talents to South Beach, agreeing to a multi-year deal with Inter Miami from MLS. Even Messi confirmed it himself.
Messi said in Spanish in the language of a Brief video released Wednesday by Diario SportDaily Spanish sports newspaper. “I still haven’t completed it 100%. We’re missing some things. But we decided to continue on this path.”
It’s a potentially transformative path for MLS, which is already the fastest-growing top-tier soccer league in the world.
Jorge Mas, CEO and Managing Owner of Inter Miami, teased the announcement by posting a stylish photo of Inter Miami’s number 10 jersey – Messi’s number – on his social media account While Al-Douri issued a cautiously optimistic statement of two sentences.
“We are pleased that Lionel Messi has stated that he intends to join Inter Miami and Major League Soccer this summer,” the statement read. “While work continues to finalize an official agreement, we look forward to welcoming one of the greatest footballers of all time to our league.”
MLS It has more than doubled in size, from 12 to 30 teams, since the arrival of David Beckham in 2007 and expansion fees have risen from $10 million to half a billion dollars over that time. Last year, MLS had the sixth-highest attendance of any soccer league on the planet, and with the World Cup returning to North America in three years, the sport is poised to break through the crowded US sports scene.
Messi will charge this batch.
Seven-time World Player of the Year Messi, who will turn 36 later this month, led Argentina to their first World Cup title in 36 years last fall, making it the only major trophy he has missed on his resume. In 17 seasons with Barcelona, he won ten La Liga titles and four Champions League titles while leading Europe’s top leagues in scoring with six goals. He has spent the past two years in France, where he won two league championships with Paris Saint-Germain, and his 806 goals for club and country are second all-time behind Cristiano Ronaldo.
Barcelona, who failed in its attempt to entice Messi to reappear, said club president Joan Laporta had been informed of the player’s decision on Monday. On Wednesday, the team issued a statement of its own that appeared to downplay Major League Soccer, saying it “respects Messi’s decision to want to compete in a league with fewer demands, away from the limelight and pressure he’s been subjected to in recent years.”
The player, who two years ago spent $7.2 million to buy the entire ninth floor of a luxury residential tower in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, seemed to endorse that view, telling Spanish sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo that he “wants to leave Europe, get out of the spotlight and think more about my family “.
He added, “After winning the World Cup and not being able to return to Barcelona, it was my turn to go to the US League to live football in a different way and enjoy more day by day.”
Argentina’s Lionel Messi celebrates with the trophy in front of the crowd after winning the World Cup final again against France in Lusail, Qatar, on December 18, 2022.
(Martin Meisner / Associated Press)
The fact that a league with a salary cap was able to outpace the wealthy Saudi Professional League, Qatari owners Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona, which Deloitte ranks as the seventh richest club in the world, is astounding. And it took a lot of creativity and collaboration from MLS and two of the league’s primary partners, Apple and Adidas, to get it done.
The financial details of Messi’s contract with Inter Miami were not disclosed, but he reportedly earned a base salary of more than $40m per season during his two years with PSG and was offered $400m a year to play in Saudi Arabia.
MLS teams have an annual payroll of $5.21 million. to me entire team. Messi would have achieved that in less than a week in Riyadh.
But MLS allows teams to sign up to three certain players to unlimited salaries, and only a fraction of it applies to the cap. This rule was adopted in 2007 to allow the Galaxy to sign Beckham for $6.5 million per season.
The league improved that offer by including a clause allowing Beckham to buy an MLS expansion franchise for $25 million, an offer he accepted in 2013 when he joined the Miami ownership group. With the signing of Messi, Beckham changes the course of the American League for the second time. But with expansion fees now at $500 million, the league had to find another way to fund the deal.
So MLS looked to its partners, according to league sources familiar with the negotiations who are not authorized to discuss it publicly. Apple, in the first season of a 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement to broadcast league matches on its Apple TV streaming platform, will help seal the contract as will Adidas, the league’s kit sponsor, who has worked with Messi since 2006. Benefit greatly from signing with Apple , which announced Tuesday that it will broadcast a four-part documentary series on Messi’s World Cup victory last fall, anticipating a surge in international subscriptions to the MLS Season Pass package.
But it is unlikely that anyone will benefit more from Messi’s decision than MLS, which has invaluable support in both interest and prestige.
The financial impact of the deal is already being felt in some corners of the league despite the fact that it’s not yet final: with Messi expected to make his MLS debut in July, the asking price for tickets for Inter Miami’s September 3 match with LAFC. At BMO Stadium it topped out at $4,700 on the secondary market on Wednesday afternoon.
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