Within minutes of Lionel Messi announcing that he would continue his MLS career with Inter Miami, rumors and reports of players wanting to join Messi began appearing on social media and newspapers around the world.
Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, Angel Di Maria and Luis Suarez.
There could be some truth to at least some of these names. Sources briefed on the talks confirmed that the club had been in serious talks with Busquets well before Messi’s announcement. Alba will leave Barcelona, but he has made a lot of money in Spain, and a move to Inter Miami doesn’t make much sense on the surface, given the salary cap limits and positional needs discussed below. It doesn’t work. Di Maria will become a free agent when his contract with Juventus expires at the end of the month, and although sources involved in the negotiations have confirmed reports that the interest between Di Maria and Miami is genuine, the deal is out of interest. There is a long way to go before the possibility of negotiations. Suarez reportedly has a buyout clause in his contract with Brazilian club Gremio until the end of 2024.
Inter Miami enlisting Messi’s friends (who are also high-level footballers themselves, of course) to bolster members of their lowest-placed MLS team sounds great, but MLS salaries ‘s reality cap can get in the way.
All of these players are highly paid at their current clubs, but Miami is still under salary cap sanctions For previously violating these roster rules in a lawsuit centered around paying an uncapped player, most notably French World Cup winner Blaise Matuidi. No doubt all teams in MLS will be watching how the league handles the rules. Messi will be a designated player, so no rules will be bent or broken when he signs. DP can be paid in any amount according to the rules. But that doesn’t apply to every player signed by Inter Miami.
Given the team’s current roster and cap situation, sporting director Chris Henderson will be very busy in the coming weeks as the second transfer window opens on July 5.
Here are some of the challenges he will face.
designated player spot
The designated player “DP” rule was introduced in 2007 when the LA Galaxy welcomed David Beckham to the MLS. This will allow teams to spend more than the salary cap to sign high-level players. Each team is given his three designated slots and cannot be traded.
Before signing Messi, Miami already had Mexican midfielder Rodolfo Pizarro, Ecuadorian forward Leo Campana and Brazilian midfielder Gregole, who will be out until at least September after undergoing foot surgery in March. Three DPs were enrolled. In order to fit Messi into the team, Miami will “buy out” Gregoire with an allotment. (Players with cap hits above the $651,250 “maximum budget,” including salary and transfer fees, can be listed as designated players, but players with caps of $1,651,250 or less may also be bought. If you use the allocated amount, it will be less than its maximum budgeted fee. )
With Messi slipping into one of the three DP slots, Miami will almost certainly need another DP exit should Di Maria or Suarez join. That’s because both players’ salaries will almost certainly exceed $1.65 million.
MLS clubs will have access to one-time contract buyouts, separate from buydowns, at any time in 2023. A buyout allows a team to remove a player from their roster and take that player out of the salary cap. With Pizarro under contract until the end of 2023, it would make sense as a potential acquisition if it goes in that direction.
It’s possible to buy out Campana’s DP slot, but that would require both sufficient quota funds and salary cap space to accommodate both him and another DP. Another option would be to sell Campana (Miami paid the Wolves a $2.7 million transfer fee at the end of 2022 and hopes to recoup some of that) or a key tool in Miami’s general public. It’s a trade within the MLS that could increase distribution build-up. To create cap space. More on that later.
If Miami sells Campana and buys Pizarro, it will free up two designated slots for the likes of Di Maria and Suarez.
If Miami wants to add more DP-level players, it’s likely they’ll need to buy Rodolfo Pizarro. (Stew Milne/Getty Images for USSF)
salary ceiling space
The MLS salary cap, like many other MLS idiosyncrasies, is tiered. At its most basic, each club can spend a total of $5.2 million on its roster. This isn’t a hard cap per se, it’s a basic number that works with multiple levers that allow you to spend more.
As explained above, clubs can pay up to 3 DP as much as they like. DPs aged 23 and over reach the salary cap of $651,250, while younger DPs pay a lower rate, with players aged 21-23 at $200,000 and under-21s at $150,000. Reach the salary cap. This is done to encourage MLS teams to sign younger players, and has become an important tool in fighting back the moniker of the ‘retirement league’. The average age of MLS DPs did not drop below 30 until 2013, but since then the average age has dropped to 30. The current record is 28 years and 21 days. In 2023, the average age of a player signing an MLS draft was 26 years and 16 days.
Another way the salary cap can be expanded is through distributions. All clubs are given a quota (not cash, but basically a budget frame) at the beginning of each season, but more money can be made through the transfer of players abroad and trades of players and other assets within the league. can produce He has two types of allocated money. One General Allocated Money (GAM) that can be used to buy out caps for any player, and a Target Allocated Money (TAM) with a designated use for players who earn within their maximum budget. is. Fees and that number over a million.
These variables drive payroll expenditures in MLS. Toronto FC was the highest-paid team ahead of the summer transfer window with a total salary of $25,741,930 this season, while CF Montreal was the lowest with $10,511,926.
get deeper
Points taken from MLS player salary announcements
This is where Miami gets interesting.
Unfortunately, MLS does not share salary cap information for specific teams, NFL, NBA, and other American leagues, it is not disclosed how much of each team’s allotted funds will be held at any given time. So what Miami is working on is a bit of a guessing game. But considering their sanctions include GAM’s $2,271,250 fine split between the 2022 and 2023 seasons, it shows Miami has been operating at a loss over the past two seasons.
They made significant efforts last season to rebuild from that fine, including selling, renting and trading players. This year, they also moved young midfielder Bryce Duke to Montreal for center back Kamal Miller and GAM’s $1.3 million. A source briefed on Inter’s plans said they were given plenty of room to work together to buy cap numbers, especially when signing Busquets, who is not expected to become a DP.
By the way, it would raise eyebrows if Busquets’ contract falls below that DP threshold. The star midfielder is reportedly earning $26.3 million a year at Barcelona, and he was reportedly receiving a contract extension offer worth $7-8 million. He also reportedly has an eight-figure offer from Saudi Arabia. The idea of him coming to MLS for less than $1.7 million a year would be a tough pill to swallow for many teams in the league.
But Miami definitely needs to look at reducing space caps and stockpiling allocated funds. They probably do so in different ways. Trade players like midfielder Victor Ujoa ($250,000 a year) and goalkeeper Nick Marsman ($587,184 a year) would move at least $725,000 away from the salary cap, theoretically. Miami will get GAM on these trades in the future. Trading a player like Campana instead of selling could mean Inter Miami would lose cash in the deal, but would gain valuable cap space through GAM.
MLS clubs know Miami wants to cut salaries to make room for Messi. Teams will no doubt be looking to get other players on the cheap.
The club prepared for this moment and remained vigilant in building their roster this winter. With Alejandro Pozuelo, key to signing him from 2022, out of contract, the club were sticking to a number they didn’t want to exceed, considering the possibility of signing Messi. Pozuelo wanted the club to break, but he didn’t, so he signed for Turkey. He is now a free agent again.
A total of 12 players have left the club since the end of the 2022 season.
Nick Marsman is a trade candidate as a backup goalie with relatively high cap hits (Lauren Sopourn/Getty Images)
International and Senior Roster Slots
In MLS, teams are given 20 senior roster slots that count towards their salary cap. League minimum members, or up to 10 players joining a league under a specific type of contract built for young talent (generation of adidas and homegrown deals) are classified as additional roster slots and do not count toward your cap.
Within these 30 roster slots, each MLS team starts with eight international slots. they are tradable.
Inter Miami currently have 16 players on their senior roster and are using five of the eight international slots, according to the league’s website. This means that if Miami wants to sign more than one of Messi’s Argentinian/Barcelona friends, they will either have to trade for international slots (must use GAM) or trade other international players. There is
This is low on the list of concerns. International slots are very easy to come by (although they can be expensive), but they’re still an area Miami has to consider in their current roster rebuild centered around Messi.
These are champagne problems. Understanding how to build a roster around the greatest players of all time is a highly enviable position, even if it requires a deep knowledge of the arcane and mysterious world of MLS roster rules.
The need for these gymnastics to surround Messi with the best possible squad is perhaps a sign that MLS still needs to grow. The details of the Roster Rules are designed to limit owner costs and losses and, above all, promote equality.
But the restrictions also put a very real limit on MLS’ chances of becoming a top league on the world stage. Signing one of the greatest players in the history of the game will make that clear to everyone.
(Photo: Xavier Bonilla/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
