Lionel Messi to Inter Miami rumors heat up, team sources confirm talks have advanced

For three years now, rumors have swirled that Argentine superstar Lionel Messi might join Inter Miami for the next stage of his career.

Each time reports popped up around the world, team officials told the Herald that while they would love to have a player of Messi’s caliber and character, any suggestion they had agreed to a deal was pure conjecture and inaccurate.

The latest report came Sunday from the Times of London, and this time, team sources confirmed to the Herald that conversations with Messi are ongoing, have reached an advanced stage, but there is more negotiating to be done and it would be “premature” to report that a deal is imminent.

The sources said Messi is considering a move to Miami, and it is closer to reality than it had been in the past. Messi owns a home in the Miami area, regularly vacations here with his family, and has said he would like to spend a few years in Major League Soccer if the circumstances were right.

Messi worked out at the Inter Miami training facility for several days in September with the Argentine national team, which was in town for a match against Honduras at Hard Rock Stadium.

Inter Miami owners Jorge Mas, who is in Qatar for the World Cup, and his brother Jose, who spent the weekend in Miami, were both reached by the Herald on Sunday, but neither would comment on the Messi talks. They stressed that Messi is under contract with French club Paris Saint Germain, and they were not at liberty to comment on any rumor involving another club’s player.

But there is one clue that suggests the Messi-to-Miami move could happen after the PSG season ends in June. A team source said they had a 2023 season ticket special for Black Friday running this weekend, but after a flood of calls Sunday following the latest Messi reports, the club will likely pull the special and postpone sales for now.

Inter Miami plays at DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, an 19,100-seat temporary stadium the club is using until Miami Freedom Park is built in Miami. The larger Miami stadium will not be ready until 2025, so seats at DRV PNK will be at a premium and prices would surely rise if Messi, a seven-time world Player of the Year, were to join the team in the summer of 2023.

The Times report said Messi was expected to sign a deal with Inter Miami after the conclusion of the World Cup in Qatar and that the deal would make the 35-year-old the highest paid player in MLS history. The report said Inter Miami could make moves to sign Messi’s former teammates Cesc Fabregas and Luis Suarez, but team sources told the Herald that was inaccurate. The team has been linked with another former Messi teammate, FC Barcelona and Spanish star Sergio Busquets.

Back in mid-May, a report from DIRECTV Sports Argentina correspondent Alex Candal saying that Messi “will acquire 35 percent of Inter Miami and join the team in Summer 2023” went viral on social media. Candal said “the contract is done and will be signed in August.”

But two high-ranking Inter Miami officials told the Herald at that time that the report was not true and that there was no deal in the works.

The rumor had picked up steam because Beckham, co-owner of Inter Miami, was seen posing for photos with Messi and other PSG stars in Qatar last spring.

Messi’s agents told Le Parisien at that time that the report “is completely false, Leo has not yet decided on his future. And if Leo Messi has crossed paths with David Beckham in the last few hours, it is only as part of PSG’s stay in Doha where the former English midfielder plays a role as an ambassador for the next World Cup in Qatar.”

Messi’s contract with Paris Saint Germain runs through May 2023 and Jorge Mas hinted at the start of this season that the club would extend a lucrative offer for the day he decides to leave PSG.

His salary is $41 million per year, a different stratosphere than the $6 million Gonzalo Higuain — Miami’s highest-paid player — made last season. But MLS, adidas and other sponsors could get involved to sweeten the deal with creative packages to lure a megastar like Messi to America the way they did when Beckham joined the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007.

It is possible he could become a team owner as part of the deal, a perk Beckham got in his contract when he joined MLS.

“Leo Messi is still one of the best players in the world, his skills have not diminished,” Jorge Mas said last winter. “I think, and David [Beckham] has a relationship with him, if he does leave PSG, at the time he leaves it, we’d love to see Lionel Messi be a player at Inter Miami and be part of our community. Can it happen? Look, we’ll push. I’m an optimist at heart. Could I see that happening? It’s a possibility.”