Don Garber open to expanding Campeones Cup | OneFootball

Major League Soccer and Liga MX are ready to take the next step in their growing partnership.

On Thursday at the Soccerex convention in Miami, MLS Commissioner Don Garber and FMF president Yon de Luisa made a presentation together called ‘USA & Mexico – United Through Soccer’ to discuss how they will develop together despite being rivals.

During the presentation, Garber brought up the possibility of expanding last year’s inaugural Campeones Cup – a one-off match between the champions of MLS and Liga MX.

Tigres UANL defeated Toronto FC on 19 September in the competition’s debut, however, the event’s timing drew criticism, as teams were gearing up for the post-season by then.

“Mexico is still a big rival on the field, and their clubs are still rivals, massive rivals, with us on the field,” Garber told reporters after the convention.

“But our concept, and it’s one that’s different for the world of global sports and I think global soccer, is we want our business to be partnerships and then we want to be incredible competitors on the field. And that concept is what makes MLS what it is today.

“We are rivals with the FMF, Mexican national team, and we’re rivals with Chivas, who beat Toronto (in the CONCACAF Champions League final) to go to the World Club Championships – I mean, that was heartbreaking.

“But then when we get back, we try to think about what do we need to do together so that we can grow the value of this idea of raising the water level, if you will, of the sport for all through business partnerships.”

While competition between Mexican and American clubs will continue to grow, Garber wasn’t as optimistic when it came to the possibility of MLS teams competing in the Copa Libertadores.

“I don’t see it happening,” Garber said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to continue to evolve our own schedule and it gets busier and busier and more and more crowded.

“We have been really focused on trying to think of ways in which we could have some sort of a meaningful competition with Liga MX and we’ve got a long way to go to figure out how that schedule will work.

“Our league is growing, we have more teams, and in time we’ll be able to have an opportunity to play in different competitions than just our league competition and our federation’s competition [U.S. Open Cup] and our confederation’s competition.

“But thinking about that being outside of our confederation, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”