Beckham tries luck in a city where fans only sing when they are winning
Fickle Miami supporters happy to switch allegiance as long as they see success, writes Daniel Zeqiri
Once football’s most coveted image rights were carved up and bonuses agreed, David Beckham inserted one very important clause into the LA Galaxy contract that started his American dream in 2007. It gave him the right to purchase a new Major League Soccer franchise for $25 million (£19.2 million), a remarkable piece of projection and long-term planning that could define the rest of the former England captain’s working life.
Tonight, after years of delays, protests and legal battles, that germinal idea becomes reality, when Beckham’s Inter Miami play their first MLS match, away to Los Angeles FC.
“Miami was always going to be the place” said Beckham, who exercised his option to form a franchise in the city in February 2014.
There are harder sells than attracting a collection of past-prime, elite footballers to the white sand and Art Deco hotels of South Beach. However, the path to this point has been far from idyllic, and it hints at an uncertain future.
The “Magic City” has a mysterious lack of sustained sporting success.
NFL team the Miami Dolphins have not won a Super Bowl since Richard Nixon was president. Baseball franchise Miami Marlins have not won a World Series since 2003 and play in a widely despised and unattended white-elephant stadium built at significant cost to the taxpayer. Miami Fusion, the city’s last MLS team, lasted four seasons before their demise in 2001. Only Miami Heat, 2012 and 2013 NBA champions, have given fans something to boast about.
As a sports city, Miami punches below its cultural weight and locals vote with their feet. Romance with their sports teams appears to be of the no-strings-attached variety rather than through sickness and health.
“It’s a bandwagon city – most people from Miami don’t support their team unless they are winning,” one Miamiraised sports fan told The Sunday Telegraph. “We can hardly fill our stands. Look at the Marlins, and even the Dolphins. The Heat have a better turnout, but that’s about it. We’re not a Boston or even a Chicago, where people would turn out to see their team play during a blizzard.”
If Beckham has aspirations to recreate the dedicated fan culture of European football, as has happened in cities such as Portland and Atlanta, this trend needs reversing.
The negative publicity created by a protracted stadium project will not help. Initially, Beckham pursued the option of a 25,000-seat stadium in Overtown, on a plot of land bought for $16 million in 2016.
Miami is unusual in that the most desirable real estate is on a narrow tongue of sandy land surrounded by water. Across the bay is downtown, and Overtown is one of its most deprived neighbourhoods. Its residents’ daily concerns range from unemployment to boarded-up grocery stores or drug-related gun crime. While a grand total of 50 jobs were promised by Miami Beckham United, the offer of a gleaming soccer stadium on their doorstep seemed at best baffling and at worst an example of creeping social cleansing.
The situation became more fraught when Bruce Matheson – landowner and activist – took legal action. He accused local authority Dade County of selling the plot based on an outdated appraisal that failed to account for the rapid increase in land value. The litigation proved unsuccessful, but by then Beckham and business partners Jorge and Jose Mas had moved on. A deal for a new site near Miami Airport, formerly a public golf course, was agreed and rubber-stamped by a city-wide referendum in 2018. The lease is still pending however, and there have been reports of toxic waste. Inter Miami’s first home game will be played in Fort Lauderdale.
After kick-off in LA, Inter Miami will begin life as a football team rather than a legal entity. They will play in black and pink and be managed by Uruguayan coach Diego Alonso. They are also coming to a transfer rumour mill near you. “I think Miami needs a star,” Beckham said two years ago, prompting fevered imaginings of Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi settling in the Sunshine State. Edinson Cavani and David Silva, both out of contract this summer, are cases to keep an eye on.
More recently, Beckham has struck a different tone by stressing the importance of bringing through talented youngsters from the city. All too often in the United States, quality coaching is only available to youngsters whose families can afford the at times eye-wateringly priced training camps. A professional academy would be of enormous benefit. Talk of rivalling European football sounds ambitious but, given increased talk of an internationalised super league, who can tell what part ambitious MLS clubs could play?
For all the wealth of Inter Miami’s benefactors and potential big-name arrivals, it is Miami citizens who will decide the success of Beckham’s extraordinary venture. Is this a bandwagon they want to jump on?