In what was the marquee game of the MLS regular season, Lionel Messi scored twice to lead Inter Miami to a 3-2 victory over the Columbus Crew to clinch the Supporters Shield trophy.
The morning after the thrilling game, Ben Jacobs reported at Give Me Sport that Inter Miami would be awarded the 32nd and final Club World Cup berth which was a wild card allocated to the United States as the host country. The 2025 Club World Cup will be the first 32-team tournament with clubs from all over the world coming to the United States in yet another expansion of the bulging world soccer calendar.
The timing of the report just hours after Miami won the regular season title only validates the suspicions and feelings that were there all along – FIFA, US Soccer, and MLS would use whatever means they could to gift the final spot to Inter Miami and the star power of Messi no matter what.
All along, the criteria for awarding the wild card spot to an MLS team felt purposely nebulous and opaque. Who even makes the decision is a total mystery given the official FIFA Club World Cup site only declares “one team from host country.”
Would it be given to the MLS Cup winner? The best-performing team over a period of time? Determined by a ranking system? Would it actually have to do with on-field merit or would the powers that be simply manipulate whatever criteria they could to get Messi and Miami in the tournament?
We now obviously have our answer, which makes the impending announcement the farce it has been suspected to be all along.
Admittedly, I’m biased as a Columbus Crew fan, I was at the game last night and saw Messi’s heroics firsthand. I wrote years ago about Anthony Precourt’s underhanded attempt to relocate the team to Austin and the power of the #SavetheCrew movement. Since those days, Columbus has emerged as a model franchise both on and off the field. Incredibly, after almost meeting its demise, the Crew has won 2 MLS Cups, a Leagues Cup, and a Campeones Cup. They also made it to the CONCACAF Champions League Final this year and have been called one of the best teams in MLS history.
But they don’t have Lionel Messi.
It’s impossible to ignore that this comes at a time when FIFA is holding emergency meetings over the fact that there has yet to be anyone to pay for television rights to the Club World Cup. As great as Cucho Hernández is, he’s not getting those deals over the line. But the presence of Messi just might.
If one were to look at it from a neutral perspective, the case between Miami and Columbus is a close one, but the edge clearly goes to the Crew. Over the last two years, Miami has a Leagues Cup and Supporters’ Shield to their name. Columbus has an MLS Cup and Leagues Cup as well as the Champions League run. Columbus also ranks 1st in the CONCACAF club rankings ahead of several Liga MX juggernauts while Inter Miami is down in 8th place.
If this were truly being decided based on sporting merits, surely the powers that be would wait and see who actually wins or goes farther in this year’s MLS Cup playoffs, right? Alternatively, they could have actually set some criteria for the final Wild Card berth the whole time.
Instead, given the reported outcome, it would have been much more transparent and believable to just give the spot to Inter Miami and Messi from the outset and avoid all of this confusion about actual sporting merit having a factor. It would have been much relatable and understandable had everyone involved communicated that a Messi and Inter Miami appearance was what was best for business. That would be totally defensible given Messi’s popularity across the globe.
And despite any effort to the contrary, the most important trophy in MLS is the MLS Cup, not the Supporters’ Shield. To decide the Club World Cup spot before the MLS Cup Playoffs even begin is a bizarre decision. It’d be like the NBA giving the Lakers a spot in the NBA Finals because they won the In-Season Tournament just because they knew it would deliver the best ratings.
And the truth is that Messi and Inter Miami will deliver the most important thing of all for FIFA and US Soccer – eyeballs and money. As we all can see now, the decision was made long ago that the spot always was going to Inter Miami.
It’s the latest reminder in an endless list of examples that the most important thing to soccer in America (and around the world) is money and that the competitions are just a vehicle to get there. That’s why there is a 32-team Club World Cup when top-class players around the world are pleading for fewer games and not more to be added to their already stacked calendars.
There is the destruction of the US Open Cup in favor of the money-making Leagues Cup with Liga MX. There are exorbitant ticket prices for USMNT games with increasingly empty stands. There is the exclusive MLS-Apple deal that has taken almost the entire league behind a paywall and the report that the deal is helping to pay Messi. (Imagine the uproar and refereeing memes if Patrick Mahomes was partly getting paid by CBS to play for the Kansas City Chiefs!) Then there are the impossibly complicated roster rules and how Inter Miami has somehow been able to navigate them to build a superteam around Messi.
But this Club World Cup deal is happening before our eyes out in the open for all to see. Had the announcement been that the Supporters’ Shield winner would earn the coveted Club World Cup slot the entire time, then it could have been acceptable. But even if Miami lost Wednesday night, the report would have come whenever they did clinch it. And if they didn’t win the regular season title, then the announcement would have come after they had a chance to win the MLS Cup. And if they didn’t win the MLS Cup, well, Inter Miami would have gotten the slot based on their superior record during midweek games while the moon is in its waxing gibbous phase.
Messi’s time in MLS should certainly be celebrated. Nobody else is getting a playoff game shown in Times Square and deservedly so. Even for fans of other teams, getting to see the GOAT in person is an experience that is worth telling your grandkids about someday. I know I will. But it would be a whole lot more enjoyable if it didn’t feel like soccer’s power players were tilting the playing field in his and Inter Miami’s favor and the tail was wagging the dog when it came to the interests of television.