December 30 – David Beckham’s prospective MLS franchise in Miami has stalled ever since the city batted down several stadium proposals. Beckham’s group has been quietly licking its wounds over the past months while other US cities have been loudly courting the MLS in hope of receiving an expansion bid.
The combination of Beckham’s silence and enthusiastic neighbours seems to have got the Miami-Dade Commissioner Juan Zapata (pictured) worried. Zapata told the Miami Herald, “I think we were hard on him,” and has offered an alternative solution to Beckham’s stadium troubles.
Zapata said: “The idea of a soccer stadium without a team is too abstract; it’s hard to envision what it would be like to have a team”, and so has proposed that Beckham’s group consider a temporary stadium – at Florida International University’s South Campus.
This idea would not appease MLS commissioner Don Garber, who is actively pursuing soccer-specific stadiums so as to generate an autonomous fan base for soccer in the US.
Though Beckham is contractually allowed to purchase an MLS expansion franchise, it is unknown whether the league is obliged to accept the franchise if the group does decide to go with the temporary stadium.
If so they may come to rue the clause, particularly when Sacramento and Las Vegas, both vying for one expansion spot, have city-backed plans to build soccer-specific stadiums.
It does appear, at least, that the MLS is starting to apply some pressure to Beckham’s group. Garber said in early December that their lack of progress “can’t go on forever”. Though it is unlikely that the MLS would pursue avenues that run them into trouble with Beckham’s contractual rights, there are cities poised to steal Beckham’s expansion spot.
It is this scenario that has prompted Zapata to say, “We say we want to become a world-class city, then we should start acting like one.”
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