In the summer of 2007, David Beckham completed his move from Madrid to Los Angeles. He had, as he explained in a statement, received a two-year renewal offer with the White Club, but at the age of 32 he decided to commit to the LA Galaxy, one of the ten franchises that founded Major League Soccer in 1996. The initiative arose as part of the commitment the American Leagues got. North to host the World Cup two years ago. Soccer has not been easy in the United States. MLS arrived to fill an ill-fated decade-long gap without a National League, but by 2007, after eleven years of getting the ball rolling, it had barely managed to get three more franchises. In 2013, when Beckham hung up his boots, there were already 19. Two weeks earlier, it was announced the arrival of player No. 30 San Diego, the fourth California-based team. Lionel Messi’s arrival in the league is now understood in the context of consolidation and with another World Cup in the middle, which will take place in 2026 with Miami as one of the venues. Then the Argentine star will be 39 years old and at that time the association with his new club will end, however, he will have his own paragraphs at the end of each season.
A superficial look at that contract signed by Beckham in 2007 alerted to the low income compared to what Real Madrid paid him. Ramon Calderon, then president of the White Club, decided: “Beckham is going to Hollywood to become a semi-actor.” But there was more. The football player received a percentage of the tickets, commerce and even income from sales on game days, so that every time someone ate a hot dog in the Galaxy’s stadium stands, they fueled the star’s checking account. In addition, a clause of Beckham’s association with the Galaxy and with MLS gave him the option to create a new franchise for the league for €25m, a deal considering the San Diego owners had just cashed it out. 463 million euros for the right to participate in the league. Forbes reports that the value of a franchise like Los Angeles FC, which was launched five years ago, has soared to €1 billion.
In October 2013, the BBC reported that Beckham was close to establishing himself as the owner of the team in Miami and that he was handling offers from as many as a dozen investment groups willing to take part, including one made up of LeBron James, Then the Miami icon. Hit. , in the NBA. Beckham defines himself as “stubborn and patient”. Building the team took four years from the time it was confirmed in February 2014 that he would exercise his option until he was awarded the Miami franchise. And from there it was necessary to wait another two seasons before the new team took to the field. On 30 January 2018 Lionel Messi released a post on Instagram to welcome the arrival of the project, I congratulate Beckham, wish him good luck and leave a wink: “Who knows if you will be able to call me in a few years …”.
Messi’s phone rang in the middle of the fourth season of the short history of Inter Miami, which was built from Beckham’s alliance with the Mas brothers, Jorge and Jose, businessmen of Cuban origin linked to Amber Capital, an investment fund that acquired a majority a year ago. From the ownership of Zaragoza and also settled in the French League to lead Lens to the Champions League. Italian Padova and historic Colombian Millonarios completed their investment in football. Amber is also a contributor to PRISA, the EL PAÍS publishing group.
In this scenario, it does not seem difficult to imagine that Messi will follow a similar path to that of Beckham to try to direct his future when he is not running after the ball. this week, the athlete He referred to several sources confirming that the option of reaching the percentage of the league team was on the negotiating table. Or maybe a landing pilot in Las Vegas, the destination MLS craves. Aside from this journey to be taken, the options for forming alliances and getting income have doubled compared to 16 years ago. Contexts change. Thus, if Beckham charges for every dog or hamburger, the Argentine superstar will do so for every television access under the agreement MLS just signed with the platform. flow from Apple for ten years and about 3,000 million euros. Messi has also agreed with Miami and the North American League on the percentage of sales of adidas, which apparel all teams participating in the competition under a contract that expires in 2030. Extrapolating to Spain, in a similar hypothetical scenario, it would be complicated to imagine that a few years ago, any Real Madrid fan would have bought A shirt from his team gives money to the Barcelona star. But this is America.
In the end, there is football. Because Messi still wears shorts. This summer he will come to a team in trouble, finally in the Eastern Conference, the competition is divided into two parts, when the campaign is in the middle of it. Inter Miami has barely managed five wins in 16 games, and Beckham, who is described on the club’s website as owner and chief of operations, has signed on to sack his friend Phil Neville. On the bench is temporary Argentine Javier Morales, who joined his academy at the dawn of the club.
The future of the new Messi team does not know a straight line. On March 1, 2020, he played the first match in his history in Los Angeles, the second in Washington, and the epidemic prevented him from opening it at home. That first campaign ended in a bubble, with the team relegated in the qualifying round and, moreover, with a severe penalty that expires at the end of this year and that weighs heavily on its investments in players other than the three that MLS allows. outside the salary cap. Inter avoided this rule by signing world champion Blaise Matuidi, who had barely played 16 matches for the team. At this point, the team is playing in a temporary venue, Fort Lauderdale, 40 kilometers from Miami, where a new amphitheater, Freedom Park, is expected to be built within two years, with an initial capacity of 25,000 spectators, twice the average audience of the team that follows today. . In Miami, the first MLS project, The Fusion, which hired Colombian Carlos Valderrama as a decoy for the fans, failed to last barely four years and, in between debts, closed in 2001 after winning its conference and falling in the semi-finals of the competition.
Messi would arrive just in time to try and lift the team in MLS and help them to the US Open Cup, the KO competition that awards a spot in the CONCACAF Champions League and in which Inter Miami slid to the semi-finals after eliminating underage opponents. categories. At the end of August, they will face Cincinnati, their conference leader in league competition. They will need reinforcements for the team that highlights the experience of its main defenders, Canadian World Cup player Kemal Miller and Ukrainian Sergey Krivtsov, who were present at the last European Nations Cup. Joseph Martinez, a Venezuelan with a short-term past in Turin, is the reference in attack for a team that does not come close to the current level of Messi, who just finished the season at Paris Saint-Germain with 21 goals and 20 assists in 41 matches, and that he could be accompanied by a former partner. Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez or Jordi Alba are in the spotlight.
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