Why doesn’t MLS stop playing during international breaks on FIFA dates?

Lionel Messi has missed a number of Inter Miami games while playing for Argentina, with MLS teams weakened at various points of the season.

Lionel Messi won’t play in Inter Miami’s MLS game against New York Red Bulls because of an ongoing hamstring injury, but even if he had been fit, the former Barcelona star would’ve missed the game anyway because of Argentina’s games during the FIFA’s March international break.

While the Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A and others are on a two-week hiatus, Major League Soccer is one of the few top divisions around the world that doesn’t stop on FIFA dates, with 13 matchday five games taking place on Saturday (23 March) and Sunday (24 March).

MLS doesn’t stop partly because it never has done, and partly because it can’t, with the month-long Leagues Cup now thrown into a packed fixture calendar along with regular season games and play-off matches.

When the league started up in 1996, the standard was some way off what it is now, which meant considerably fewer international players - and indeed players from other countries in general - were involved. That has inevitably changed as MLS has grown, leading to significantly more issues clubs who have their teams weakened for a number of weeks during the season.

While FIFA don’t force any leagues to pause during their international windows, they do oblige clubs to release their players for international fixtures, friendlies included.

To try to mitigate the issue, MLS has extended the domestic season over the years, but re-introduction of the Leagues Cup, which runs for four weeks in the middle of the campaign, has limited the impact of those changes.

In 2023, 99 games were playing during official FIFA dates (most of which were during the CONCACAF