Messi Skipping The 2025 MLS All-Star Game May Doom The Event For Good

Forbes

4 days ago

Lionel Messi, center with MLS commissioner Don Garber, right after the Leagues Cup Final between ... More Inter Miami CF and Nashville SC at GEODIS Park on August 19, 2023 in Nashville, Tenn.
If you're of the perspective that Major League Soccer has kowtowed far to much to Lionel Messi's personal interests since the two entities began their relationship in 2023, but also that MLS needs to move on from meaningless exhibitions, the news Wednesday that Messi will skip the MLS All-Star Game is quite conflicting.
On the one hand, it's hard not to feel personally disrespected that a player who quite literally takes a share of the league's TV revenue, and who has played every minute of Inter Miami's previous 16 fixtures across all competitions can't be bothered to show up for 30 minutes of exhibition action in Texas and may now claim fatigue.
On the other, it just might be the necessary blow required to kill off an event that has outlived its usefulness.
If a fully healthy Messi, who is literally an MLS business partner rather than employee, can't be bothered to show up to at the league's de facto annual convention, then there's no reason to keep having it. (The 2026 MLS All-Star Game has already been announced, with Charlotte as the host club.)
If Messi and teammate Jordi Alba skip the event and avoid immediate sanctions, as early reporting from ESPN suggests, what is to coerce Kylian Mbappe 10 years or Lamine Yamal 20 years from now in the twilight of their careers? What is to coerce any other players or clubs in the interim? If MLS goes back on its requirement that players either appear at the All-Star Game or face a one-match suspension, this is only the beginning of the big-name absences. If it doesn't, this is the end of any reasonable argument that the league isn't purposefully tilting competitive scales in Miami's favor.
American fans have every right to feel angry and frustrated by Messi's obvious indifference to his role as league ambassador, despite his willingness to accept the commercial benefit that comes with it. But they should also appreciate the good his indifference may bring, in that MLS may finally accept that the best way to be a globally relevant league is to treat league matches – and not exhibitions – with the competitive importance that most globally relevant leagues do.
MLS Treats All-Star Like An Afterthought Already
The All-Star Game is just one of far too many examples where MLS tries to have its cake and eat it too.
Maybe there is room for the uniquely American event in a league that too often runs from its American-ness. And it's hard to deny the MLS vs. Liga MX format is a lot more captivating than most other American All-Star events. In some ways it's a throwback to baseball's Summer Classic before the introduction of interleague play, when it provided a rare opportunity for direct competition for players of two rival leagues.
But as is MLS' mode of operation these days, it has made no realistic accomodations to facilitate participation without overburdening players and clubs.
Baseball, an everyday sport, provides a four-day gap in the schedule for its All-Star game. The NBA, in which teams typically play 3-4 games a week, takes a week off. The NFL hosts its All-Star festivities after the season is over for every team not competing in the Super Bowl. By contrast, MLS has merely thrown in its All-Star event as another midweek fixture between weekend Matchdays, insisting as it always does that there is no time in the schedule to do anything else.
There's a lot of reasons for that insistence, but most involve poorly contrived additions to the competitive schedule, combined with the desire to cram as much of that schedule in warm-weather months when ticket sales are highest.
Messi and his team shouldn't be absolved. Given Messi's injury history in recent years, there's no justifiable reason for his recent workload in league play aside from the possibility that it's his own call rather than his manager's.
MLS Has Set Conditions for Messi's Indifference
And there is either a lack of social awareness or concern for how it looks that the Argentine happily accepts the compensation and commercial opportunities commensurate with being 'the face of the league,' without embracing the duties that would normally entail.
But MLS has entirely enabled this behavior since a time when Messi in Miami was a widely held fantasy.
It went light on sanctions against Inter Miami for violating roster construction rules, opting for transfer restrictions when nearly any other league would've sanctioned the club with points and potentially relegation. (The latter tool is admittedly not one MLS currently has.)
It permitted Messi to enter into a reported agreement with streaming partner Apple TV that obviously calls into question competitive integrity. It scheduled 2025 MLS fixtures so Miami would have fewer international Matchday clashes than others, even despite also playing in the FIFA Club World Cup. And seems certain to approve Miami's move to sign Rodrigo de Paul as Messi's midfield enforcer, a loan with a purchase option that may technically conform to MLS roster rules but certainly not their spirit.
It's unrealistic to expect MLS to do an about-face now, and probably not in its best interest. This is the bed they've made with the biggest star in league history, and the best of the bad options is keeping him as happy as possible until it ends.
The least they can do is take his feedback seriously as to what is isn't worthwile. Scrapping the All-Star Game would be a start.