The world of football has been left scratching its head as Lionel Messi defied the allure of a half-a-billion-dollar paycheck from Saudi Arabia, succumbing instead to the call of Miami’s sun-drenched, tax-free haven.
The Argentine World Cup winner — a free agent at the end of a fruitful but acrimonious stay in the French capital — had suitors aplenty. A fairy-tale return to Barcelona was thought to be close, but the prodigal son was too costly for the Catalunya club, still reeling from years of financial mismanagement.
Yet, it is the move to Major League Soccer — three years ahead of the World Cup carnival’s arrival on North American shores — that possesses the potential to reshape the very foundations of the sport, much like Pele’s entry to the USA with the New York Cosmos in 1975.
“You come here, you win a country,” Cosmos’s general manager Clive Toye had told the three-time World Cup winner. And so Pele did, forever changing the landscape of soccer in the United States. The Brazilian’s two-year stay heralded an era where stadiums brimmed with spectators, bearing witness to a metamorphosis that beckoned more illustrious names like Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff, and George Best to embark upon their American odyssey.
Now, Messi’s arrival casts a similar enchantment, with rumours swirling of his former Barcelona comrades Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets contemplating their own journeys across the Atlantic.
The anticipation is already high; Inter Miami’s forthcoming clash against Philadelphia on July 25 has ignited a frenzy, with tickets vanishing even though Messi can officially sign for the club only after June 30. The lowest price for a ticket to Inter Miami’s League Cup opener against Mexican side Cruz Azul on July 21, widely touted to be Messi’s American debut, is priced at USD 2600 (actual price: USD 29) in the secondary market, according to Fortune magazine.
One cannot overlook the commercial windfall that lies in wait. David Beckham, co-owner of Inter Miami, sold 300,000 LA Galaxy jerseys per season during his five-and-a-half-year stint, but MLS and Adidas are expecting Messi to outsell that number. Paris Saint-Germain sold 1.2 million Messi jerseys worldwide in 2022-23, earning USD139 million, and his Argentina No. 10 shirt was sold out across the globe midway through the 2022 World Cup.
Driven by such commercial and sporting potential, Apple, Adidas, Beckham, and the MLS have converged, conjuring a deal that promises to transform Messi into a part-owner of the club, granting him a share of the revenues his presence will command.
Yet, in the midst of much swirling disbelief, Messi wants to clear the air about his true motivation. “If it had been a matter of money, I’d have gone to Saudi Arabia or elsewhere. It seemed like a lot of money to me. The truth is that my final decision goes elsewhere and not because of money,” he told Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo. “It’s time to go to MLS to live football in a different way and enjoy my day-to-day life more.”
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