The Club World Cup has opened self-inflicted wounds for MLS 🤕 | OneFootball

It seemed all set up to be a potentially famous day in MLS history when Lionel Messi and Inter Miami lined up against the superstar's former team, PSG, in Atlanta on Sunday afternoon.

Yet to nobody's surprise, the European champions ran riot over the still-adolescent MLS club, blanking Miami and scoring four first-half goals at a canter.

Before the match, MLS Commissioner Don Garber called the intercontinental matchup a "historic day" for the league, adding that it would be a "moment to celebrate for everyone who’s believed in our league."

The expensively assembled Herons were not the only MLS side to struggle at the tournament, with their historic qualification to the knockout rounds eclipsing the campaigns of the Seattle Sounders and LAFC, who both packed their bags after the group stage.

Yet it was the round-of-16 showdown between Miami and PSG that perhaps reopened some self-inflicted wounds for MLS.

📸 JUAN MABROMATA - AFP or licensors

With parity in mind, MLS clubs are massively hamstrung by restrictive spending rules, allowing them to only truly spend big on a limited number of players in their respective squads.

While eight different MLS Cup winners in the last decade shows parity has been achieved, the league's very public ambition to take a seat at the table with the biggest leagues in the world can only be seen as incompatible with its policies.

Earlier this year the Athletic conducted an anonymous survey of MLS executives, and the feeling of needing to relax spending restrictions was seemingly mainstream thinking.

“We have to capitalize on the World Cup to grow the fan base and viewership," one league executive said.

"Really it’s about increasing the quality of players and rosters and having exciting teams. That’ll come with more changes to salary cap and rules and regulations and giving more flexibility to bring more players to the league.”

The country was perhaps on a knife-edge heading into 2025 with both the Club World Cup and 2026 World Cup on the horizon as many within sport believe it is the most crucial period for the sport in American history — but MLS may already be behind schedule when it comes to implementing the necessary structure to ride the wave.

The question now remains, how does MLS want to advance? Do they want to appease the low-spending, unambitious club owners? Do they want to appease the fair-weather fans who say they won't watch MLS if the same high-spending clubs dominate (despite the fact they get up and watch the Premier League every Saturday and Sunday morning)?

From the outside the answer seems obvious; free yourself from your own shackles. Allow those clubs who want to spend and dominate to spend and dominate, with legacy clubs and organizations having room to build.

If you don't, you risk treading water in the pool of mediocrity for the remainder of your existence.

📸 Sandra Montanez - 2025 Getty Images