Messi confirms transfer to Major League Soccer.

LOS ANGELES —
Lionel Messi confirmed on Wednesday that he will join Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami as a free agent after leaving French champions Paris Saint-Germain and turning down a hefty contract offer in Saudi Arabia.

Messi, who played his farewell match for PSG last weekend, has been linked with a return to Barcelona, although the Spanish club’s hands are constrained owing to LaLiga’s financial fair play laws.

“I made the decision that I’m going to go to Miami,” Messi said in an interview with Mundo Deportivo and Sport newspapers.

“I still haven’t closed it 100%. 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 a World Cup triumph in Qatar in December and has a record seven Ballon d’Or honours, won the Ligue 1 championship as well as the French Super Cup in his two seasons with PSG.

“After winning the World Cup and not being able to go to Barca, it was time to go to the U.S. league to experience football in a different way and enjoy the day-to-day,” Messi said.

“Obviously with the same responsibility and desire to want to win and to always do things well. But with more peace of mind.”

Ownership stake

The MLS expressed its delight that Messi plans to join Inter Miami this summer.

Messi wants to join a club where he might someday hold a share, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters last week. He also wants to make the most of his current Adidas contract and MLS’s ties with Apple.

MLS receives a set price of roughly $250 million each year from Apple until it hits a specific number of subscriptions, at which point it will get a percentage of the income generated by those subscriptions.

As the world’s most recognisable football star, Messi’s transfer to MLS is expected to lure people to the Apple TV streaming platform.

After receiving a formal offer, the forward was linked with a transfer to Saudi Arabian club Al-Ittihad.

The Gulf country has been attempting to lure in the game’s top names, and it was successful in convincing Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo to join Al Nassr immediately after the World Cup. Karim Benzema, a French striker, joined Al Ittihad this week.

Former England captain David Beckham co-owns Inter Miami. Beckham was one of the first prominent European talents to go to the United States to play in the MLS, winning the MLS Cup twice with the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Messi will have his job cut out for him in Miami, where the team sits at the bottom of the Eastern Conference rankings, six points from ninth place, the final slot that would allow them to qualify for the playoffs.

After a poor run of 10 loses and five victories this season, the team fired coach Phil Neville last week, a sharp contrast to previous season, when they finished sixth and qualified for the MLS Cup playoffs.

VOA