Motivation Quote by Cobi Jones

A retired star choosing the word “back” is never accidental. Cobi Jones frames the Commissioner’s agenda as a kind of restitution: the sport has drifted away from the people who animate it, and leadership is now returning it to its rightful owners. That’s a shrewd bit of athlete diplomacy. He endorses the boss while also quietly validating the complaint he knows players and supporters have been making for years: too many decisions in modern pro soccer feel engineered from above - for sponsors, for TV windows, for executives - rather than for the lived texture of the game.

Jones’s phrasing does two things at once. “Steps necessary” signals pragmatic reform, not revolution, which keeps the comment safe inside league politics. But “give the game back” carries a populist charge. It implies a recent loss of control and, by extension, a loss of intimacy: fewer authentic moments, more managerial choreography. The line also wraps labor and audience into one coalition (“players and the fans”), a subtle pressure tactic in any league that depends on growth narratives. If you’re the Commissioner, you want fans to feel heard and players to feel respected; Jones presents that alignment as the route to legitimacy.

“Next level” is the modern sports mantra - ambitious, vague, investor-friendly. It hints at expansion, better product, bigger cultural footprint without naming the trade-offs. The subtext: reform isn’t just ethical, it’s strategic. Treat the sport less like a spreadsheet and more like a community, and the business follows.