Lionel Messi, the GOAT, has apparently chosen the subsequent and certain final vacation spot of his otherworldly membership profession, and it’s Inter Miami.
That was the word Wednesday from Guillem Balagué, a extremely credible and well-connected Barcelona-based journalist who has coated Messi for greater than 20 years. The information comes after an in-depth report hours earlier from The Athletic that laid out how the deal would be structured if it occurred, and even when precisely Messi would possibly make his debut for the Major League Soccer membership.
Hours earlier than that, a supply informed FOX Sports that the preliminary rumblings in Spanish-language media had been greater than mere rumors. Then, lastly, Messi introduced it himself in an interview with SPORT and Mundo Deportivo.
This is definitely occurring.
[Lionel Messi is joining MLS club Inter Miami on free transfer]
Messi didn’t need to depart Barcelona two years in the past. But after the dire monetary scenario of the one skilled membership he’d ever identified prevented him from extending his contract, the Argentine famous person reluctantly inked a two-year pact with Paris Saint-Germain — a dedication that ends this month.
Messi cemented his legacy as the best participant in historical past whereas at PSG. Winning the World Cup will try this. That standing additionally restricted his choices. Given his age (Messi turns 36 this month) and stratospheric wage, few golf equipment may realistically think about recruiting him. Barcelona was the notable exception; Barça supervisor Xavier “Xavi” Hernández made no secret of his want for a reunion together with his former teammate and shut good friend.
That storybook return is what Messi coveted, too. Once the identical cash issues that sealed Messi’s departure conspired to stop it from occurring, although, there was solely as soon as place that made sense for the residing legend and his younger household to go: South Florida.
Sure, Messi may’ve taken the reported $600 million-plus annually on offer from Al Hilal and joined Cristiano Ronaldo in Saudi Arabia’s high league. Yet regardless of the ungodly sum on the desk, he at all times appeared much less possible to comply with his longtime rival than to additional differentiate himself from Ronaldo by selecting a distinct path.
Both Balagué and The Athletic reported that Messi’s settlement with Inter Miami is being brokered with assist from company behemoths Adidas and Apple, MLS’s two greatest strategic companions. MLS’s international visibility was already on the rise. The sponsorship alternatives will be countless for Messi in North America, the place Pele, extensively regarded Messi’s predecessor because the GOAT, was a pitchman for many years after his enjoying profession was completed.
[How Pelé brought the beautiful game to the United States]
Miami is the higher choice for the Argentine’s Spanish-speaking household and from a soccer perspective, too.
There will be prompt familiarity if Tata Martino, Messi’s compatriot and his former coach with each Barcelona and the nationwide group, succeeds the recently fired Phil Neville as Miami’s coach, as is predicted. While MLS’s degree of play nonetheless lags behind Europe’s high 5 leagues, it’s bettering steadily. The American and Canadian circuit despatched extra gamers to final yr’s World Cup in Qatar than any league exterior the highest divisions in England, France, Germany, Italy or Spain.
Messi’s aiming to preserve enjoying for the Albiceleste by the 2024 Copa America and probably additionally the 2026 World Cup, each of which is able to be hosted or co-hosted in the U.S. The high quality in MLS is excessive sufficient not to threaten these ambitions.
For MLS, touchdown Messi is an unprecedented triumph. Not since David Beckham left Real Madrid for the LA Galaxy in 2007 has the home league lured a world icon able to making such a splash each at house and abroad. Messi guarantees to be much more impactful.
There’s a direct line between Beckham’s signing and Messi’s. Beckham is certainly one of three-year-old Inter Miami’s minority homeowners, his unique settlement with MLS containing a clause that allowed him to purchase into an growth group at a cut-rate worth. While Beckham perpetually modified MLS’s trajectory, with the league greater than doubling in dimension since in the 16 years since his arrival, Messi can amplify the publicity of MLS globally in a means that merely wasn’t potential in the mid to late 2000s.
MLS is a much more mature operation now than it was then. Adding Messi immediately takes the league to a distinct degree. It’s not simply that stadiums will promote out in each metropolis he visits, or that hot-pink Inter Miami shirts emblazoned together with his well-known No. 10 will change into ubiquitous in quick order. In the primary yr of a decade-long, $2.5-billion international media rights take care of Apple TV, MLS’s product now boasts maybe the one particular person whose mere presence alone is able to single-handedly driving a large enhance in subscriptions world wide. At house, Messi’s face will be all over the place in the lead-up to 2026 — and lengthy after.
Add all of it up, and it’s not that onerous to perceive why Messi has apparently determined to finish his unparalleled enjoying days in Miami, in MLS. It’s merely the place that makes essentially the most sense in the top.
Doug McIntyre is a soccer author for FOX Sports. Before becoming a member of FOX Sports in 2021, he was a employees author with ESPN and Yahoo Sports and he has coated United States males’s and ladies’s nationwide groups at a number of FIFA World Cups. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.
Lionel Messi
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