MLS willing to be flexible in order to seal Lionel Messi transfer — Don Garber

MLS commissioner Don Garber said it will likely take a creative, David Beckham-like deal to land Lionel Messi, but that the league and Inter Miami are willing to be flexible to find the right compensation package in order to land the Argentine superstar.

Messi is out of contract this summer and is in discussions over a contract extension with his current club, Paris Saint-Germain. He is also in talks about a potential move to Inter Miami. The World Cup winner, who turns 36 in June, remains one of the best players in the world and won the Golden Ball at the World Cup in November.

“You’re dealing with perhaps the most special player in the history of the game,” Garber said in a wide-ranging interview with The Athletic on Thursday. “So when there are rumors of him connected to Miami, that’s great. And if it could happen, it would be terrific for MLS, it would be terrific for Messi and his family, and like everything with us, we try to run every opportunity down. I can’t give any more details than that because we don’t have them.”

If MLS is going to land Messi, however, it will have to come up with a deal that can meet the hefty compensation he would command. When he joined PSG, The Athletic reported that the Argentine signed a contract worth at least €25million net per year, in addition to a €25m signing-on fee. Recent reports also indicated that Saudi Arabian clubs are interested in paying Messi a deal similar to Cristiano Ronaldo’s reported $75million annual contract at Al Nassr.

Toronto FC’s Lorenzo Insigne is currently the highest-paid player in MLS, with a base salary of $14million — nearly double the previous record high.

“Teams have the flexibility to do unique things,” Garber said. “MLS is a single entity. If you’re selling something that the collective owns, the collective has to approve that. So whatever (Inter Miami owner) Jorge (Mas) decides, with (MLS executive vice president) Todd (Durbin’s) help to structure something, if we have the opportunity to do that, it’s going to be outside the box.

“Because as you all know what’s going on in international football today, with Ronaldo at $100million … the transfer market is just exploding in ways that are unimaginable. We’re gonna have to structure a deal that’s going to compensate him in ways that he and his family expect. What that is? Honestly, we don’t know today, but he’s probably not going to be a (targeted allocation money) player.”

Garber acknowledged that Messi would be an unprecedented signing for a league that has been home to plenty of international stars, including Beckham, Kaka and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Beckham is undoubtedly the closest comparison, however, with Garber once calling him MLS’s Michael Jordan.

When Beckham arrived in MLS in 2007, he was 31 years old and one of the most famous soccer players in the world. In order to…