The idea of ​​a football club in Miami, the city of the basketball giants Heat, hockey’s Florida Panthers, and baseball’s Miami Marlins, appeared at the end of the first decade of the 2000s.

In 2009, the Bolivian millionaire and businessman Marcelo Claure tried to find a football club with the help of the Spanish Barcelona, ​​but he did not get far. 

In 2013, the idea was put into action by David Beckham, whose contract with the MLS league included an option to fund his club.

It took Becks five years to go through all the bureaucracy, so in 2018, MLS announced that it was expanding the league and that a new club was being created in Miami. 

In September of the same year, they announced the name of the club: Inter Miami. 

This club played for the first time in the American MLS league in March 2020.

Initially, the investors and David Beckham included Bolivian businessman Marcelo Claure and British producer Simon Fuller, who Japanese businessman Masayoshi Son joined. 

After Beckham bought Fuller’s shares, two investor brothers came – Jorge and Jose Mas, Cuban-Americans, sons of billionaire Jorge Mas Canosa, owner of the construction company MasTec from Miami.

Jorge Jr. is also the president of Spanish Zaragoza, where they have a majority stake.

Inter Miami, which also had corporate banter with Italian Inter who wanted to sue them for the name’s rights, has a modest stadium. 

They play at DRV PNK Stadium, which has a capacity of 21,000. Messi, the best player in the world, is playing there now. But this is a temporary solution. The club is building a new Freedom Park stadium with 25,000 spectators.

David Beckham wanted this stadium to open in 2022, but the club has been waiting for a construction permit for a long time. 

Only last year they received approval for a loan on land belonging to the former Melreese Golf Club, which is for 99 years.

The stadium will be built as part of a public park with football, tennis, athletic fields, business premises, and a shopping center. Next to the stadium, a luxury hotel with 750 rooms will be built.

Lionel Messi, the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner, arrived in Miami midway through last season, boosting sales of tickets, jerseys, and subscriptions to league sponsor Apple TV. 

The main question that was asked was how the American MLS league, which is organized according to the classic American principles with a salary cap (MLS salary cap) in which a player can earn a maximum of 612,500 dollars in one season, will pay Messi. 

It’s simple: the league and the entire American soccer industry will pay for it because they need it to increase MLS’s popularity. 

The Argentine’s money in America will not be limited to a salary from his new club, Inter Miami; he will also earn from two important league partners/sponsors: Apple and Adidas.

In his first season, Messi helped Miami win the League Cup trophy, but he failed to lead the team to the playoffs after Inter’s weak start. The club ended last season with nine wins, seven draws, and 18 losses, and it was in 14^th place in the Eastern Conference.

Lionel Messi gathered around him all the best friends with whom he wrote the historical pages of Barcelona. 

He won four championship titles in Spain and the Champions League since Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and the legendary Luis Suarez.

Read More About Other Leagues and Original Series.