Neymar's Potential Move to MLS: Star Power or a Mistake?

Major League Soccer has always loved a marquee name. It built part of its identity on them. David Beckham lit the fuse, and the league kept going back to the same well: Steven Gerrard, Kaka, Andrea Pirlo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney. Now Lionel Messi, lured by Beckham himself, is the main event wherever he turns up.

Everywhere Messi goes, tickets vanish. MLS knows it. So does the rest of the world. And that is why the next rumour feels almost inevitable: Neymar, after a bruising return to Santos, being linked with a move to join Messi in Miami and chase the American dream of his own.

On a billboard, it’s perfect. On a balance sheet, even better. Brazil’s all-time leading goalscorer, 34 years old, rolling into South Beach to reunite with Messi and Luis Suarez. The “MSN” nostalgia writes itself.

But on the pitch? That is where the debate starts.

‘MLS are making mistakes’

Giuseppe Rossi, the former Real Salt Lake forward who is now Head of Soccer at the New York Cosmos, does not hide his frustration. Speaking to GOAL in association with BetBrothers, he cut straight through the hype.

“This is where MLS are making mistakes, and they continue to make these mistakes,” he said.

“It’s great marketing, it is what it is, but what kind of product are you putting on the field? Bringing Neymar back to reunite him with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, what are you trying to become as a league?”

For Rossi, the obsession with star power is dragging the league away from its stated ambition of competing with Europe’s elite.

“If it’s to get to the level of the big boys out in Europe like the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga and those competitions, you’re moving at a snail’s pace but MLS is very thirsty for clicks and views, and they don’t really care about the standard of the football itself.

“Yes, they have made great strides, and well done to them for that. The valuations of the clubs are high and it’s a great business model but what about the football? Is that growing and moving forward? I don’t think so, and that’s something that has to change.”

The criticism bites. MLS has never been more valuable as a business. Franchise prices soar, commercial deals roll in, stadiums fill up when the big names come to town. But Rossi argues that the people steering the ship are focused on the wrong scoreboard.

“The problem is that the people in charge don’t really care. They only care about the valuations. That’s the problem when you put these billionaires in charge of a league. They’d love to see Neymar come to MLS and play with Messi again but it’s not going to grow MLS as a football league. That’s what I think.”

Neymar: spark or circus?

Neymar’s recent years have been turbulent. Injuries, stop-start seasons, questions over form for club and country. The talent remains, but the rhythm that once made him unstoppable has been harder to find.

A move from South America to Miami could, in theory, change that. At Barcelona, alongside Messi and Suarez, he produced some of the best football of his career. The chemistry between that trio defined an era at Camp Nou.

So could MLS tap into that again? Rossi accepts there is a powerful argument for the move from a sporting and emotional standpoint.

“If Neymar could make the move to Miami, why not? It would be great for him, and he’s still a great player. I freaking love Neymar. He’s one of the best players of his generation and I think everybody would love to see him play, and that’s great for the fans and everything else.”

He stops there, though. Because for him, the trade-off is too big.

“I just look at it another way because there are pros and cons to everything, and yes everybody wants to see Neymar but it does take away from the integrity of the products itself by making MLS into even more of a circus than a true football league.”

That word hangs in the air: circus. It is the fear that MLS becomes a travelling show built around ageing superstars, rather than a league judged on the quality and intensity of its football.

A new era, familiar questions

Neymar’s deal at Santos runs until the end of the year. Once it expires, he will be free to walk into Miami and step straight into the spotlight. If that happens, he would arrive just as MLS prepares for a structural shift of its own.

From the 2027-28 campaign, domestic soccer in the United States is set to move to a European-style calendar. A new rhythm for the season. A nod towards the traditional powers the league claims it wants to compete with.

Messi is expected to be part of that transition. Despite hinting at retirement, he is under contract through 2028. Suarez would need another extension to stay long enough for “MSN” to ride again in full.

So the question hangs over MLS as much as over Neymar: is this the moment to double down on nostalgia and star power, or the moment to prove it can finally be more than a stage for the last acts of global icons?