AS THE 2024 season of Major League Soccer gets underway in the United States and Canada, much of the focus is not on the football, but on the numerous off-field concerns that have arisen in the sport during the off-season.

The two overarching issues in the league at the moment are MLS’s attempt to withdraw its teams from the country’s 110-year-old domestic cup competition — their equivalent to the FA Cup — the US Open Cup, and a referee lockout that means the season will start with replacement, scab referees.

Both provided the backdrop to the opening game on Wednesday night when Lionel Messi's Inter Miami faced Real Salt Lake, with replacement officials in place.

An overwhelming 95.8 per cent of members of the referees’ union, the Professional Soccer Referees Association, voted against a new bargaining agreement with the Professional Referee Organisation (PRO).

PRO employs MLS referees as well as those working in other professional leagues such as NWSL and USL and is headquartered in the same building as MLS, in New York City.

On Wednesday, protests took place outside the league’s HQ where there was a show of solidarity with the referees from supporters and unionised workers from other industries.

“I think we deserve a little bit more than what we are getting,” veteran referee Guido Gonzales Jr told Jonathan Tannenwald of the Philadelphia Inquirer at the protests.

“Not just money-wise, not just salary-wise, but better flights, accommodations, more security on the job, and all these situations.”

As the profile of the league has risen with the arrival of Messi, increasing sponsorship and other money flowing into the league, referees believe they are being left behind.

“Don’t forget, refs had no collective bargaining rights for the first 18 years of MLS, which tells you something about MLS’s view of referees,” former referee Matt Foerster said on Twitter on Thursday.

“For too long, MLS and US Soccer have relied on and benefited from the sheer love and passion referees have for the game, their willingness to sacrifice themselves and more lucrative careers to be a part of the game they love.”

Messi’s arrival has brought more attention to the league, so maybe it will also highlight the numerous recent off-field issues and the referees’ fight for fair employment.

His presence already highlighted a labour issue last year when workers at a Santa Monica hotel at which Inter Miami were scheduled to stay were out on strike.

In a show of solidarity, and with input from their own union, Inter Miami players refused to stay at that hotel, changing their accommodation ahead of a game against Los Angeles FC.

One of the highlights of Messi’s first few months in the United States was his performance against Cincinnati in the 2023 US Open Cup semifinals.

With his team trailing he produced two magical assists to get them back in the game, which they eventually won on penalties.

Alarm bells started to ring when any mention of this was left out of a Messi mini-documentary released on Apple TV+ at the end of last season.

Then in December, MLS announced it would be withdrawing its teams from the 2024 Open Cup.

The Open Cup is a tournament unique in football in the US, and indeed US sport, as it involves teams from across the sport at all levels and not just the franchise-based, closed-shop Division I-sanctioned league.

In the US, football leagues have to be assigned their divisional status by the United States Soccer Federation (USSF, the country’s FA) as there is no organic league pyramid based on promotion and relegation.

This lack of free movement between leagues is one of the reasons the Open Cup is vital to the growth of the sport as a whole beyond MLS.

The participation of teams from MLS, the USSF Division I-sanctioned league, is just as important as the participation of those amateur and semi-pro teams in the early qualifying rounds.

Perhaps with this in mind, the USSF pushed back on MLS’s presumptuous announcement to withdraw from the Open Cup and denied their request, even though it felt less like a request from MLS and more like a statement of intent.

And this is why the issue rumbles on.

As of last weekend, MLS wanted a compromise where it would only enter eight teams into this season’s Open Cup and demand 40 per cent of revenue from away games at non-MLS teams.

The ultimatum was that it would walk away entirely if the demands weren’t met.

At that point in the discussions, the 2024 competition was under threat of being cancelled due to those demands.

Since then, discussions have continued, but it still seems likely that MLS will only enter eight teams, and there will be some changes to revenue distribution.

Even if the 2024 edition goes ahead in some form, there are worries that the 2025 tournament will face similar issues as MLS will again look to withdraw.

As it is now more difficult for casual fans and general followers of the sport to watch MLS games themselves, more of the general focus could be on off-field issues such as these.

The league’s new broadcast deal with Apple TV that started last year has taken the majority of its games behind a streaming subscription service, and away from the usual TV channels people use to watch the sport across the globe.

So while Messi brings more attention to the league, a lot of the focus at the start of this new season could end up being on the referee lockout and the US Open Cup saga, which is no bad thing given the importance of both to the game in the country that will co-host the 2026 World Cup.