Major League Soccer will pause its season for the 2026 World Cup as it considers a monumental calendar shift, but is not likely to start spending more to match the world's top clubs. This is all according to league commissioner Don Garber who spoke with reporters on Friday ahead of Saturday’s MLS Cup final.
MLS has played through the summer on a spring-to-fall calendar since its inception in 1996. The arrangement helps the league avoid playing through the winter in some of the country’s coldest climates, while also lessens the number of games that take place alongside American football, basketball, and hockey.
However, the summer period often sees the league's best players, who play for international teams, be away from their squads for weeks at a time while playing in the major international tournaments like the World Cup, European Championship and Copa America. MLS has previously stopped play for the World Cup group stage in 2010 and other shorter periods for World Cups in 2014 and 2018.
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Speaking to reporters ahead of the 2024 MLS Cup final, Garber said that the league will not play during the 2026 edition, which will be hosted in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. He did not specify if the pause in play would last the entire tournament, which is due to run from June 11 to July 19, 2026.
The lack of games could go hand-in-hand with a move to the fall-to-spring schedule favored by most European leagues and others around the world, Garber said.
“It’s important to point out that the league, in 2004 and 2005, and then again in 2014 and 2015, looked at a schedule change,” Garber said. “I think now we could be the only league, or one of only two leagues in the world that works on our schedule. But it’s complicated.”
Garber pointed out that the size of the United States and Canada, both of which have MLS clubs, is one factor among many that the league will take into consideration.
“I do think that we are considering, more than ever before, this opportunity to change, but it’s not something that we’re ready to talk about right now.”
Additionally, Garber said that despite the success of Lionel Messi in MLS and the off-field impact of other big-name players brought to the league in the last few years, that MLS would likely not be changing many of its rules governing how much teams can spend.
“I don’t anticipate any significant changes to leagues spending rules.” Garber said.
MLS spending is controlled by a maze of rules and regulations, with teams generally allowed to spend whatever they want on the contracts of three players (known as “designated players”) while having access to different pools of money to attract young, promising players from abroad.