Lionel Messi will join US Major League Soccer side Inter Miami as a free agent after parting ways with French champions Paris St Germain and snubbing a lucrative contract offer in Saudi Arabia.
Messi, who played his final game for PSG last weekend, was also linked with a return to Barcelona but the Spanish club has had its hands tied due to LaLiga’s financial fair play rules.
“I made the decision that I’m going to go to Miami,” Messi said in an interview with Mundo Deportivo and Sport newspapers on Wednesday.
“I still haven’t closed it 100 per cent. I’m still missing a few things, but we decided to go ahead. If Barcelona didn’t work out, I wanted to leave Europe, get out of the spotlight and think more about my family.”
Messi, who led Argentina to World Cup glory in Qatar in December and has earned a record seven Ballon d’Or awards, won the Ligue 1 title in his two seasons with PSG as well as the French Super Cup in 2022.
“After winning the World Cup and not being able to go to Barca, it was time to go to the US league to experience football in a different way and enjoy the day-to-day,” Messi said.
The MLS said it was pleased that Messi intended to join Inter Miami this northern summer.
Messi had wanted to go to a club where he could eventually have an ownership stake, a source with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters this week. He also wanted to maximise his existing deal with Adidas and MLS’s relationship with Apple.
MLS earns a flat fee of about $US250 million ($375 million) a year from Apple until it reaches a certain threshold of subscriptions. Then it will earn a share of the revenue from those subscriptions.
The forward was also linked with a move to Saudi Arabian side Al-Hilal after he received a formal offer.
The Gulf country has been looking to bring the game’s biggest players to its league. It managed to convince Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo to join Al Nassr soon after the World Cup, while French striker Karim Benzema joined Al Ittihad this week.
Inter Miami is co-owned by former England captain David Beckham, who was one of the first major European stars to move to the US to play in the MLS, winning the MLS Cup twice with Los Angeles Galaxy.
Messi will have his work cut out in Miami, however, with the club rock bottom of the Eastern Conference standings – six points from ninth place, the final spot that would give it a chance of qualifying for the playoffs.
