LOS ANGELES – Fifa president Gianni Infantino said on May 6 that Major League Soccer (MLS) needs to sign more top players in order to boost the profile of football in the United States, where the sport is not the most popular.

His comments were an obvious reflection of the impact Lionel Messi has made – both in terms of the economics and fanfare – on the league since he joined David Beckham’s Inter Miami last summer.

Infantino, speaking at a conference in Los Angeles, said he told MLS officials recently that bringing in the world’s best players would take football to the next level.

“I told them you have to be a bit more bold... in the game,” he said at the Milken Institute Global Conference.

“Bring in the best players.”

Infantino said Miami’s signing of Messi, and the club’s acquisition of other big-name players such as Luis Suarez and Sergio Busquets, had proven the demand for top talent among US fans.

The Fifa chief alluded to the record 65,612 crowd who flocked to the New England Revolution’s April 27 home game against Miami at Gillette Stadium, home of the National Football League’s (NFL) New England Patriots.

“The ‘Messi effect’ if we want to call it that way, you see Messi and Inter Miami filling stadiums, and not MLS stadiums but NFL stadiums,” Infantino added.

MLS salary and roster restrictions mean that teams are unable to spend freely when it comes to signing top players.

However, the league has faced growing calls – not least from broadcast partner Apple TV – to relax those rules in order to enable clubs to target the game’s big stars.

Infantino also said that bringing in top talent would ultimately reap dividends at grassroots level in North America, encouraging young players to believe they could forge a career in football.

“We want to see the best so we need to bring them the best players, but also the best game, and the best spectacle,” the Swiss said.

“For this we need to invest in the players because we want to show to the kids who play soccer when they are at school or when they are very young, that there is a path in soccer to glory to become one of these world stars.

“They see it in basketball, American football, in baseball and ice hockey. But in soccer, it’s still kind of far away.” AFP