Two issues may be true on the similar time.
1. The Main League Soccer All-Star Recreation is a nasty occasion that must be drastically reimagined or eradicated.
2. How MLS Commissioner Don Garber handles Lionel Messi’s All-Star snub will probably be a legacy-defining second.
After questions over Messi’s potential participation within the occasion simmered by the primary two days of All-Star festivities, a big section of the (admittedly area of interest) MLS fanbase exploded in anger Wednesday when it turned clear the 38-year-old Argentine star was going to skip the exhibition in Austin, Texas.
Leaguewide MLS journalist Favian Renkel declared on X, previously Twitter, that it was formally time to ask whether or not former LA Galaxy striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic had been a greater ambassador for the league than Messi. In The Austin Chronicle, columnist Eric Goodman referred to as it “an enormous center finger to MLS and its followers.”
And Garber even admitted the entire thing had been dealt with poorly.
“Yeah, we must always have identified earlier. We must always have addressed it earlier. Little doubt about that,” he mentioned at a wide-ranging press convention in Austin earlier Wednesday.
Now, Garber faces the unenviable resolution of whether or not to droop Messi and teammate Jordi Alba, who additionally skipped the occasion, for Saturday’s high-profile conflict towards FC Cincinnati — a choice the league had not reached as of Thursday afternoon.
“Miami has had a schedule that’s in contrast to some other staff,” Garber mentioned, referencing the staff’s participation within the FIFA Membership World Cup and the Concacaf Champions Cup. “Most of our groups had a 10-day break. Miami hasn’t. We had Leo taking part in 90 minutes in nearly all of the video games that he’s performed. We’ve got to handle by that as a league. On the similar time, we do have guidelines, and we now have to handle by that as effectively.”
The rationale that is such a unstable challenge has little or no to do with the All-Star Recreation itself and every thing to do with the form of the league’s relationship with Messi, which is fraught with potential conflicts of curiosity in every single place.
If reporting from 2023 was correct — and the league has by no means advised it isn’t — Messi will not be merely an worker of MLS, however reasonably a enterprise companion.
His preliminary 2.5-year settlement to play for Inter Miami probably included an settlement to obtain a reduce of the subscription charges to Apple TV’s MLS Season Cross. Extra lately, his “Mas+ by Messi” sports activities drink is now the league’s official hydration companion.
Each league resolution that goes Messi’s method, and even the looks of such a choice, will all the time invoke claims that Miami and Messi play by completely different guidelines than everybody else.
However even two units of guidelines can be tolerable for many MLS followers if it weren’t for one factor: Messi fairly clearly doesn’t give a f— about being an envoy for MLS. The All-Star Recreation simply made it crystal clear.
You received’t discover any good MLS followers from the dangerous outdated days who assume it was a mistake to fairly actually change the principles on the fly so the LA Galaxy might signal David Beckham in 2007.
However Beckham very clearly needed to be in the USA and Hollywood. He additionally dedicated to MLS’ long-term future by negotiating future possession of an MLS staff into his contract, which changed into Inter Miami.
Messi seems barely to need to be part of MLS even whereas nonetheless taking part in. He by no means offers group interviews to the press corps overlaying the staff, and barely in one-on-one conditions to journalists he trusts. In the meantime, each Inter Miami transaction since final yr’s embarrassing playoff loss appears to contain both bringing in South American influences or sending established MLS influences elsewhere.
Now he doesn’t simply skip the All-Star Recreation. He does so with no discover or rationalization, amid the longest run of excellent well being in his profession, by which he’s performed each minute of 16 consecutive Miami video games.
To be truthful, it’s utterly unsurprising from Messi, who has all the time been naturally introverted and, as far as we all know, has by no means tried to cover his aspirations to play as a lot soccer, earn as a lot cash, and in any other case stay as far out of the general public eye as doable.
The expectation that he can be MLS’ subsequent Beckham, and even the equal of Pelé within the outdated NASL, was maybe unavoidable due to American soccer historical past. Additionally it is one thing MLS clearly leaned into in its early efforts to publicize his arrival.
Garber can’t change Messi’s conduct or make up for his league’s errors in advertising and marketing their enigmatic star.
However he can cease making exceptions till Messi offers followers and the media some actual inclination he’s purchased into MLS’ longer-term future. If he doesn’t do a minimum of that, he could also be commissioner in title solely — with the actual man in cost carrying that best-selling pink No. 10 jersey.
