Inter Miami coach Gerardo Martino said speculation about Neymar joining Inter Miami is just that — speculation — and would likely need a change in Major League Soccer (MLS) salary rules to be a real possibility.
Speaking at the team’s training session before Saturday’s playoff game in Atlanta, Martino was asked about the possibility of Neymar joining the team in 2025 following a Wall Street Journal report that the Brazilian winger purchased a waterfront lot in Miami for $26 million.
“Everyone that buys at home here is going to come to play?” Martino asked, with a laugh.
“I arrived in Barcelona at the same time as [Neymar]. It was a good year and for me being able to coach such highly-regarded players will always be a very special memory. Nothing more than that,” he said.
Reporters continued to press Martino on the potential for a reunion considering the fact that four former Barcelona players — Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets — have already reunited with the MLS club in South Florida.
Could he imagine a scenario with all five together?
“With [Lionel Messi] and the rest of the boys already here, anything can happen,” Martino said. “What I can’t imagine is if the league doesn’t make the salary cap more flexible, how it would be carried out. After writing it or saying it in the media, it’s all good, nothing happens, it doesn’t have any consequences. But what would the implementation be like? No one explains that. And the reality is that if there is something that the MLS has, it is that the rules are strict and can’t be broken, unless the MLS decides to change.”
“What’s happening is throwing out names just to throw them out.”
A reporter pointed out a recent report from The Athletic that MLS is considering changing the format of its calendar as early as 2026, and Martino quipped that those changes would be in two years’ time, not a few months.
“The truth is that one cannot talk so easily and freely about whether a player could come or not,” Martino said. “It seems to me that when we talk about this, another type of support is needed. We cannot talk or mention a player because he bought a house here or has a girlfriend from Fort Lauderdale.
“It’s nonsense, you have to speak conclusively. First you have to analyze what the league offers and if this is really possible. Starting from that base, today this is impossible, so there is no reason to continue the conversation.”
What would Miami need to do to sign Neymar?
Martino is right. Under MLS rules, Neymar could not fit on to Inter Miami’s roster as it’s currently constructed — at least not as a designated player.
In MLS, teams are heavily restricted in how their owners are able to spend money on rosters, with the bulk of the outlay focused on the top three to six spots on the roster.
Teams are given two options of how to build their roster. They can have three designated players (DPs): players whose budget hit, calculated by acquisition costs and salary, are unlimited, but who hit the cap at the “maximum budget charge;” and three under-22 initiative players: players aged 22 or younger whose acquisition costs do not count toward the cap, but whose salary is restricted to the league’s “maximum salary budget charge.”
Teams can also opt to carry just two designated players and have four “U-22 players.” Those teams also receive a payment of up to $2 million in “allocation money” which is, essentially, an accounting currency that provides extra cap space in the form of “dollars”.
OK, take a breath. Rub your eyes.
Let’s try to sort out what that means for Miami.
Currently, Inter Miami have opted for the 2-and-4 format: two DPs, Lionel Messi and Sergio Busquets, and four U-22s: Tomás Avilés, Diego Gómez, Federico Redondo and Benjamin Cremaschi.
It’s important to recognize that this format opens up more cap space for teams because U-22 players hit the budget at a lower cap number and the league provides that $2 million in GAM, which can be used to buy down other players’ cap hits.
In 2025, DPs will hit the cap at $743,750, while U-22s will hit the cap at either $150,000 (aged 20 or below) or $200,000 (aged 21 or 22). Which means Inter Miami is saving about $550,000 in cap space by taking a fourth U-22 rather than a third DP — and that’s without accounting for the extra $2 million in GAM. That matters for Inter Miami because they are carrying multiple players who make significant money, but aren’t DPs, including Alba, Suarez, Julian Gressel and Nico Freire.
In order to fit Neymar, Inter Miami would need one of two scenarios to play out.
The first is easy: Neymar would have to agree to come on a deal similar to Alba and Suarez. That is, take a discount to play with his friends. That was made easier for Alba, in part, because he was being paid out many millions of dollars still from Barcelona. Neymar is out of contract in Saudi Arabia in the summer. Would there be a payout if he agreed to leave early? Would he be willing to make a maximum of $1.744 million in 2025?
If so, he could fit — as long as Miami found a way to cut salary elsewhere to accommodate his arrival.
Second, Miami could opt to switch to a 3-and-3 format: three designated player and three U-22s. This would be very difficult to achieve on multiple levels. First, Miami would have to get rid of not one, but two U-22s. So while Gomez’s sale to Brighton seems to be all wrapped up for January, Miami would have to move another U-22 because Facundo Farias is on a U-22 deal and will be coming back from his season-ending injury.
Then, after selling or trading a U-22 player, Miami would have to make sure they had the requisite cap space open to accommodate a third DP hitting the books at that $743,750 — which, in theory, could be easier than taking him on that $1.744 number, but not when you get rid of the $2 million in allocation money the team is getting from MLS in the 2-and-4 format.
In other words, making Neymar a DP would likely necessitate multiple player sales, both from the team’s arsenal of U-22 players and also from the rest of the roster.
Not impossible, but difficult. And complicated.
(Francois Nel/Getty Images)
