David Beckham may have revealed his next sports venture after visiting Miami to explore the possibility of setting up soccer franchise in the sunshine state.
The recently retired Beckham toured Sun Life and Florida International University (FIU) stadiums and met Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez on Saturday.
“We’re ready and we’re excited about the possibility of having top-flight professional soccer back in Miami,’ Gimenez said. ‘With people from all over the world living in our community, this is an ideal market for MLS and David Beckham is the right person to make it happen.”
Miami has had a Major League Soccer team before. The Miami Fusion held matches in Fort Lauderdale from 1998 to 2001, before shutting down because of poor attendance.
This time around, city officials hope a team would succeed.
“The whole community loves soccer down here,” FIU Executive Director for Sports and Entertainment Pete Garcia said.
Garcia said university officials delivered a presentation to Beckham and Marcelo Claure, president and CEO of Brightstar Corp and a member of the FIU Board of Trustees, explaining the draw of a professional team in Miami. He said FIU officials hoped Beckham and Claure would start a MLS team and choose FIU as their stadium.
“Our stadium is state of the art, brand new, and it’s made for soccer,” Garcia said.
He also noted that a majority of the university’s 52,000 students are Hispanic, and many of them avid soccer fans.
“I know it would be successful now,” he said.
Beckham, before his career-closing stint with Paris Saint-Germain, played with Los Angeles Galaxy, Real Madrid and Manchester United.