Why doesn’t MLS stop playing during international breaks on FIFA dates?

Lionel Messi has missed a number of Inter Miami games while playing for Argentina, with MLS teams weakened at various points of the season.

Lionel Messi won’t play in Inter Miami’s MLS game against New York Red Bulls because of an ongoing hamstring injury, but even if he had been fit, the former Barcelona star would’ve missed the game anyway because of Argentina’s games during the FIFA’s March international break.

The reasons MLS keeps playing during FIFA dates

While the Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A and others are on a two-week hiatus, Major League Soccer is one of the few top divisions around the world that doesn’t stop on FIFA dates, with 13 matchday five games taking place on Saturday (23 March) and Sunday (24 March).

MLS doesn’t stop partly because it never has done, and partly because it can’t, with the month-long Leagues Cup now thrown into a packed fixture calendar along with regular season games and play-off matches.

When the league started up in 1996, the standard was some way off what it is now, which meant considerably fewer international players - and indeed players from other countries in general - were involved. That has inevitably changed as MLS has grown, leading to significantly more issues clubs who have their teams weakened for a number of weeks during the season.

While FIFA don’t force any leagues to pause during their international windows, they do oblige clubs to release their players for international fixtures, friendlies included.

Re-introduction of Leagues Cup adds more games to crowded fixture calendar

To try to mitigate the issue, MLS has extended the domestic season over the years, but re-introduction of the Leagues Cup, which runs for four weeks in the middle of the campaign, has limited the impact of those changes.

In 2023, 99 games were playing during official FIFA dates (most of which were during the CONCACAF Gold Cup) and another 12 games were played a day after the end of a break, which international players didn’t have time to get back for.

To put it simply, there is no space left on the soccer calendar in the United States, with some clubs in northern cities and states hampered from playing at home, or even training outdoors, at certain times of the year because of weather constraints.

Will MLS stop for the 2024 Copa América and 2026 World Cup?

This year, MLS won’t stop for the 2024 Copa América, even though it will be played in the United States - and the USMNT will be involved - between 20 June and 14 July. Commission Don Garber claims a pause would be a financial disaster for the league and its corporate sponsors.

There is, however, expected to be a break for the 2026 World Cup, which will also take place in the US, as well as Mexico and Canada. How that’s going to look, however, is still up in the air.

“Are there creative and unique ways to manage through that? Should we be thinking about playing in a single destination for a period of time during winter months where you can’t play in Toronto or in Kansas City or in Chicago or New York, Boston? Who knows? Maybe that might be the answer,” a pensive Garber has previously claimed.