{"id":32517,"date":"2025-07-24T00:51:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T00:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/32517\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T00:51:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T00:51:13","slug":"lionel-messi-daring-mls-to-punish-him-by-no-showing-all-star-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/32517\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi daring MLS to punish him by no-showing All-Star Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Major League Soccer\u2019s biggest stars will take the pitch in Austin, Texas, Lionel Messi won\u2019t be one of them.<\/p>\n

The Inter Miami star will not participate in Wednesday\u2019s MLS All-Star Game, despite being voted onto the roster, and raises an interesting conundrum for the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By not participating in the MLS All-Star Game for any reason other than an injury, Messi is flouting league rules that would make him eligible to be suspended for one game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"LionelLionel Messi could face a suspension for skipping the MLS All-Star Game. ISI Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

MLS commissioner Don Garber declined to say whether or not the soccer superstar would be given a suspension during a press conference ahead of the All-Star Game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to talk about today, because the game\u2019s not till this coming weekend,\u201d Garber said. \u201cWe don\u2019t need to announce that now. We\u2019re managing through that process as we speak.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inter Miami is scheduled to face Cincinnati on Saturday in its final regular-season game before the league pauses for the Leagues Cup tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Garber appeared to express some sympathy for Messi and Inter Miami, which have had nine games in 35 days between the Club World Cup and MLS season, all of which he\u2019s played 90 minutes in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to manage through that as a league, at the same time, we do have rules and we have to manage through that as well,\u201d Garber said. \u201cWe would have loved to have Leo here. We\u2019d have loved to have every player that was selected for the All-Star team here. After this All-Star game, we\u2019ll figure out what needs to happen this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

The MLS commissioner did note that Messi did not practice on Wednesday and hinted at the possibility that Miami could suggest Messi was hurt. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have to manage through what Miami is going to say about that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Inter Miami\u2019s head coach, Javier Mascherano, had expressed a desire for Messi, and Jordi Alba, to rest instead of playing in the All-Star Game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players are called up, I would like them to be able to rest but that is not my decision,\u201d he said ahead of Miami\u2019s win over the Red Bulls last weekend<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alba is not participating in the All-Star Game as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"LionelLionel Messi (l.) and Inter Miami teammate Jordi Alba (r.) are both skipping the MLS All-Star Game. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Messi missed last year\u2019s festivities due to the ankle injury he suffered in the 2024 Copa Am\u00e9rica final and Alba did take part in the skills challenge and All-Star match against stars from Liga MX.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Liga MX All-Stars will include Monterrey defender and former Real Madrid star Sergio Ramos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MLS has enforced its rule regarding players skipping the All-Star Game in the past, including against Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 when he was a member of the LA Galaxy in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ibrahimovi\u0107 had sharply criticized the policy and in comments to reporters, he said that \u201cI come from a different world, I come from the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Major League Soccer\u2019s biggest stars will take the pitch in Austin, Texas, Lionel Messi won\u2019t be one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[6865,9523,403,99],"class_list":["post-32517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-lionel-messi","tag-mls","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}