Within minutes of Lionel Messi announcing that he would continue his career in MLS with Inter Miami, the rumors and reports of players who wanted to join him started to pop up on social media and in newspapers around the world.

Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, Ángel Di María and Luis Suárez.

There is likely some truth to at least some of those names. Multiple sources briefed on the discussions confirm that the club has been engaged in serious talks with Busquets since well before Messi’s announcement. Alba is leaving Barcelona, but made a significant amount of money in Spain and a move to Inter Miami doesn’t make a ton of sense on the surface considering the salary cap restrictions explained below and their positional needs. Di María will be a free agent when his contract with Juventus expires at the end of this month, and while sources involved in talks confirm reports that interest between Di María and Miami is real, there is a long way between interest and possible contract talks. Suárez reportedly has a buyout clause in his contract with Brazilian club Grêmio, which runs through the end of 2024.

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While it sounds great for Inter Miami to gather a band of Messi’s friends — who, of course, are also high-level soccer players in their own right — to bolster the roster of a last-place MLS team, the realities of MLS’ salary cap could stand in the way. 

All of those players are highly paid at their current clubs, and Miami is still under salary cap sanctions for previously breaking those roster rules in a case centered around paying players outside of the cap — most notably French World Cup winner Blaise Matuidi. Undoubtedly every team in MLS will be watching to see how the league handles the rules. Messi will be a designated player, so no rules will have been bent or broken when he signs; DPs can be paid any amount of money under the rule. But that won’t apply to every player Inter Miami signs.