Don Garber: Liga MX is better than MLS right now

Major League Soccer aims to be one of the best leagues in the world, but MLS commissioner Don Garber admitted he and his fellow executives still have work to do in order to surpass their neighbors down south in Mexico's Liga MX.

While MLS may boast star players like David Villa, Kaka, and Sebastian Giovinco, the overall quality is not quite comparable, according to players like Andre-Pierre Gignac, who claimed Liga MX is of a higher standard.

Garber didn't deny that fact, either:

"I think it starts with the Mexican league is better than our league now, and we have to acknowledge that and that's OK," Garber told ESPN in Mexico. "You always have to have someone within your sights in business and life and sport as your target to say they are the ones that we want to get.

"There are lot of things in Liga MX that we admire: they spend more money, better training, they have been at it a longer period of time, better development."

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The disparity between Liga MX and MLS is seen directly and frequently during the knockout stages of the CONCACAF Champions League - no MLS team has won the international club competition, after all.

But Garber says it's not for a lack of effort from MLS sides, who go into the contest during preseason while Mexico's elite outfits are in mid-season form.

"Excuses are terrible in the sports business but when we are playing in February before our teams are together against a Club America when they are at their peak that is not good for the competition," Garber said.

"I am a big proponent of changing that and then if when we are at a level playing ground and they still beat us then we need to take a step back and say, 'what do we need to do to get even better?'"