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MLS commissioner Don Garber declined to reveal what Lionel Messi told him during a heated public exchange last month, but he called Messi “the greatest athlete of all time” while speaking at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit in New York.
“What was going on there is between me and Leo,” Garber told FOS editor-in-chief Dan Roberts. “But I admire it, I appreciate it, and I think it’s what makes Leo Messi the greatest player ever to play the game of soccer, football, and I will go and say the greatest athlete of all time.”
After Inter Miami defeated Cruz Azul 2–0 to win the Campeones Cup in September, videos circulated online of Messi sharply gesticulating in Garber’s direction during the on-field trophy presentation. Messi appeared to point his finger toward Garber and speak to him in an animated manner multiple times.
While remaining coy about what Messi told him, Garber argued the incident was an example of what separates Messi from other all-time greats.
“The best players in the world have passion,” Garber said. “The legendary players have more than passion.”
Last year, MLS suspended Messi one game for skipping the league’s All-Star Game, enforcing a longstanding policy. Messi and Inter Miami were incensed with the decision, leading Garber to acknowledge he was on icy terms with the Argentine maestro.
“I don’t think he wants to talk to me,” Garber said of Messi at FOS’s Huddle in the Hamptons event last July.
Messi also skipped the 2026 MLS All-Star Game, but he avoided suspension after the league said it was excusing him and international teammate Rodrigo De Paul due to their recent participation in the World Cup final.
Garber told Roberts in July that Messi was “still mad” at him but that the two were “communicating a little bit more.”
At Tuned In, Garber praised Messi’s impact on interest in the league, saying his star power is a major attendance and revenue booster whenever he travels on the road.
“People want to be able to see a player who they can tell their kids, ‘I watched Leo Messi play,’” Garber said. “And then, in ways that defy almost logic, he delivers.”
Garber has been MLS commissioner for all but three years of the league’s history, taking office in 1999 after 16 years at the NFL. He is set to depart at the end of the year while retaining a role as “chairman,” and he will be replaced by private equity executive Larry Berg.
In his nearly three-decade tenure, Garber oversaw MLS’s vast expansion from a national afterthought with less than a dozen teams to a 30-team league that has attracted the likes of Messi, David Beckham, Thierry Henry, and Son Heung-min.
Messi signed with Inter Miami in 2023, three years after the club debuted in MLS. He has racked up 104 goals in all competitions, leading Miami to the MLS Cup title in 2025.
