The Commissioner of Major League Soccer, Don Garber, has joined voices calling for greater accountability within football, saying Fifa must “think about our sport strategically” as the discord over an expanding football calendar continued.
Garber said he was “excited” at the prospect of Fifa’s new Club World Cup competition, which is due to take place in the US next summer, but at the same time sympathised with those speaking out against fixture overload, with the players’ union Fifpro this week launching a legal challenge against the governing body over a lack of consultation on its expansion plans.
“The world is shrinking, and with that sports are evolving,” said Garber, speaking at the London-held Leaders Week conference. “I just want everybody to be thoughtful about it. Be strategic about it. Be mindful of the impact of any of those decisions on fans and on stakeholders.
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“I followed very closely what went on with the English fans’ reaction and the Premier League’s reaction to the Super League. You have to be thoughtful about ensuring that we’re making decisions, not for today, that we’re making them with a mind towards a better tomorrow.
“I can’t criticise any other person. I’m not part of [Fifa’s] decision-making process. All I can do is work really hard to meet with the leaders of Fifa to ensure that they are aware of the impact of their decisions. And I say that not just about the global governing body. We all have to be thinking about how the dots can be connected, and that requires leadership and thinking about our sport strategically.”
MLS will have two sides in next summer’s Club World Cup, a competition which has still to secure a broadcast deal with just months to go until the event. This week, the president of La Liga, Javier Tebas, said Fifa should cancel the tournament, but Garber has defended it. “We’ll have at least two teams in it and it will be very valuable for our teams,” he said. “We have been trying hard to show our competitiveness against the rest of the world and the best way to do that is [through] having our teams compete in meaningful competition against clubs that are outside of Major League Soccer.
“There’s going to be a lot of energy and a lot of momentum around building interest in the sport of soccer leading up to the World Cup; the Club World Cup is going to be one of those events, but I will say that we all need to be mindful of the calendar and I understand Javier’s views. I think we’ve got to all work to see whether or not we can be a more engaged part of the decision-making process and I would include that in the Club World Cup.”