This weekend, Inter Miami CF will finally arrive in Major League Soccer.
Their much-anticipated MLS debut comes six years after David Beckham was awarded an expansion franchise in the Floridian city and his dream of owning a team is about to come true.
Over the past six years the wait has been excruciating for soccer fans in and around Miami as stadium plans have been held up, Beckham and his wealthy investors almost pulled the plug on the deal entirely and endless mocking from other MLS fanbases led to many calls for Beckham to move his expansion franchise to another US city, one where it was easier to realise his dream. But he wanted his team to be in Miami.
Now Inter Miami have arrived, even if they are playing their first few seasons in a temporary home in Fort Lauderdale, 30 miles north of Miami, Beckham has talked about wanting to sign Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar.
Beckham's Miami dream has been a time in the making
Beckham has always wanted to do this properly but the struggle has been very real when it comes to finding the correct parcels of land in Miami to build a football-specific stadium for his new team. That was something MLS always wanted to happen and still do.
The original award of an expansion franchise was in 2014 but between then and 2018 there were serious doubts that this team would ever come to fruition. MLS commissioner Don Garber demanded a football-specific stadium in downtown Miami but in a strange way the stadium struggles with other MLS franchises has helped out Miami. New York City FC are still playing at Yankee Stadium, which was supposed to be a temporary home. Atlanta United play in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium they share with the Atlanta Falcons of the NFL. Nashville arrive in MLS this season calling the Tennessee Titans' Nissan Stadium their home for at least a couple of seasons.
Inter Miami
Nickname: The Herons
Head coach: Diego Alonso
Notable signings: Rodolfo Pizarro (Monterrey, £9.8m), Matias Pellegrini (Estudiantes, £7.3m), Julian Carranza (CA Banfield, £4.9m)
And Miami's battle for a place to call home, permanently, continues to rumble on.
It is safe to say Beckham's bid hasn't gone smoothly since the former Manchester United, Real Madrid and LA Galaxy star announced his intentions to host his cut-price MLS expansion side in MIA. As part of his playing contract with the Galaxy, which he signed back in 2007, he was allowed to purchase an MLS franchise for $25m upon retirement from the game. The latest MLS expansion fee paid to place a team in Charlotte, North Carolina was over $300m.
Aside from his love for the game, you can understand why he wanted to get this done.
Several stadium sites have come and gone over the years as a potential downtown waterfront site was first knocked back and then a deal collapsed to build a stadium next door to MLB's Miami Marlins. The Overtown site looked a shoe-in to happen but local councillors voted against the stadium as Beckham was once again left exasperated.
In the 2018 event to unveil the franchise once again (four years after the first unveiling) Bolivian billionaire Marcelo Claure revealed he and Beckham were ready to throw in the towel after years of searching unsuccessfully for a stadium site in Miami. Then local construction magnates Jorge and Jose Mas stepped in to join the ownership group, along with Masayoshi Son, but so far numerous stadium plans have failed to be approved across downtown Miami and its surrounding neighborhoods.
Miami Freedom Park is their preferred location for a permanent 25,000 capacity home, and although that process is moving along, they still need a key city council vote to make the stadium close to Miami International Airport a reality, plus there have been some issues with the plot of land containing potentially hazardous materials. More delays are surely on the way. That has led to Beckham and Co potentially revisiting their stadium plan in Overtown.
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