By Ben Nicholson
July 21 – David Beckham appears to have found a mutually agreeable site in Miami for his long awaited MLS franchise. The city’s resolve to push Beckham away from its prime real estate has forced him to resort to the less desirable land next to Marlins Park, home to a Major League Baseball team, which is west of downtown in Little Havana.
For the last year and a half, since exercising his contractual right to buy an MLS franchise at the bargain price of $25 million, Beckham has waned whilst wooing the Floridian populace and politic.
The land now targeted previously housed National Football League team, Miami Dolphins. The Orange Bowl stadium was demolished when the team moved to a new location.
Simon Fuller, Beckham’s business partner, once described the land as “spiritually tainted”. However, according to Mayor Tomas Regalado, this has changed. He claimed: “We have the commitment, the real commitment that we never had before from the Beckham group that they do want to play at the Orange Bowl, that they do want to build this stadium, that they do want to partner with the city of Miami.”
Miami have done well to re-route Beckham’s group considering its insistence on a waterfront downtown location. Beckham, himself, is on record insisting, “the atmosphere is created by people and generated by a downtown site. It has to be downtown and it has to be on the water because Miami is all about the water and so much is happening downtown.”
A spokesperson for the group, last week, retracted Beckham’s words with the new mantra that “our preferred stadium location is the former Orange Bowl site.”
Beckham’s group will fund the construction as well as compensating Miami for the land they are going to build upon. Although logical that a group ought to provide compensation for the land obtained, it is often waived by the owners in want of the investment. Therefore Miami has done good business in retaining public monies and gaining overall from the incoming investors.
The group’s offer to privately fund the stadium was a necessary concession in order to avoid popular discontent arising from the backlash of previous poor dealings. The building of the baseball stadium Marlins Park could cost the city around $2.4 billion over the course of 40 years, and so Beckham’s group have had to settle the fears of a repeat disaster.
The current plan, as understood, is that the stadium will seat 25,000. However, if talks with the University of Miami are successful, so as to migrate their American Football team into the stadium and provide for some of the investment, then the stadium’s capacity could increase to 40,000.
This latter scenario is not ideal for the MLS, which is actively encouraging development of soccer-specific stadiums. However, the option gets the Miami franchise off the ground and could be a temporary halfway house whilst the group petitions for a different site.
The necessity of Beckham getting the franchise playing has been accelerated not only by the pressure of the MLS and Don Garber, who said they could not wait forever, but also by Paolo Maldini, who bought a NASL (North American Soccer League) franchise team in Miami. Maldini’s team will enter the league in 2016, potentially grabbing some of the fan-base that Beckham was eyeing.
Any deal with the University of Miami is contingent, though, on escaping their current leasing obligations in the Sun-Life Stadium, which is where the Miami Dolphins moved before the Orange Bowl was demolished.
Beckham’s group must still get the plans approved by the city. Though they “are thrilled by the initial outpouring of support we’ve received from our fans and [are] excited about sharing [their] plans with the city, county and community soon,” their track record appeasing the people and politicians is poor. Therefore do not be surprised to find more developments in the coming months.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1735251965labto1735251965ofdlr1735251965owedi1735251965sni@n1735251965osloh1735251965cin.n1735251965eb1735251965