This international scandal over Lionel Messi missing a game in Hong Kong is as hilarious as it was predictable.

Inter Miami invited this type of controversy in undertaking an extraordinary 25,000-mile, seven-match, five-nation preseason tour that has been closer to preseason tour-ment in the runup to the February 21 start of its Major League Soccer season.

The grueling trek is a brilliant idea from a financial standpoint and to further grow the Inter Miami brand. Messi’s affiliation with Miami surely is a major reason why Hard Rock Stadium was gifted seven 2026 World Cup matches including a quarterfinal and the bronze medal game.

That the club has Messi on parade milking his name for maximum profit is understandable. This is his second season here and he’s signed only through the 2025 season. His aura will linger; Miami will always be the MLS team that had Messi. But he will take most of the magic of the Inter Miami brand with him when he leaves.

So you can’t blame the club squeezing everything it can while it can from Messi.

You can question it a bit, though.

You can wonder if a lengthy international tour is as good for the team and its preparation as it is for the club’s profits.

Messi is 36. The other three stars that form the hub of the team are around the same age. Most MLS teams play one preseason friendly, as Miami did a year ago. Now the club is taking its aging team around the world, and the team was winless (three losses, one draw) before Sunday’s controversial victory.

We saw what happened last season, when seven Leagues Cup games and six U.S. Open Cup matches interspersed with MLS play left Inter Miami out of gas as league play ended with Miami falling short of securing a playoff spot.

Coach Tata Martino admitted that near the end of last season his was “a team that was spent.”

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