Major League Soccer (MLS) commissioner Don Garber was recently on Grant Wahl’s podcast, “Futbol”, and discussed the possible merger of MLS and Mexican’s soccer league, Liga MX.
Garber says there’s a strong possibility but its long ways ahead, “But there’s a long road and a very, very complicated step to go from inter-league competition, from a tournament perspective to tearing up MLS as it exists today, tearing up a Liga max as it exists today. And then reorganizing as a singular, you know, league in our two countries, that is a long way away.”
Garber also says there is structural issues between the two leagues, “And you could imagine the difficulties, in essence, you would be tearing up the operating agreement that MLS owners have with each other as part of the MLS structure, and forming it entirely differently,” he continued, “It would have to be entirely restructured. Some teams would be in some teams would be out all sorts of structural issues. They don’t have a CBA with their players that don’t have the same organizational operational structure that we do. They don’t share revenue the way we do. I mean, you could go down the list and I would imagine that at some point somebody could figure out how to address all those issues.”
The option is on the table, but even if its long ways ahead, will it happen?
Santiago Leon is the Founder and CEO of the Sports Cast. He covers almost every sport: NFL, NBA, and world soccer. He’s also founder of sleon productions, which he specializes in technology and serves clients with solutions to make their business grow.