The English soccer star and the legendary athlete David Beckham expressed his sincere joy for the approval of his own soccer club opening in Miami. Beckham’s dream came true just four years after his move to Florida.
The news broke that David Beckham’s plans to set up his own club in Miami had been finally brought into life. The team, which still has no official name, has been approved by MLS after almost four years. Having overcome all obstacles on the way to his dream, Don Garber, MLS Commissioner issued a license to create the twenty-fifth US Soccer League team.
The former English national team captain said that he would try to include truly competitive players in the Miami team. However, the club, according to him, will also engage in the local talents nurturing.
David Beckham expressed his desire to replicate the success of the so-called. “Class 92” – a group of young players who honed their skills for a decade under Alex Ferguson’s supervision in Manchester United and eventually became an incredible success. According to Stakers.com, during David Beckham’s presence in the Premier League, he became a six-time English league champion medal winner, scoring 15 free-kicks, and making 51 assists between 1997 and 2001.“We want to reach for the stars, we want the best players in, but more importantly for us we want to create a state of the art academy where we have a hotbed of talent in this part of America,” Beckham said. “If we get that right, that will make us and the people of Miami even more proud to support their team, because they’re seeing young kids, their sons, coming into this team and have the chance to play professional soccer.”
During these four years Beckham’s ambitious project has encountered many hurdles in its way. The lack of sufficient investments and as well as issues with constructing a new arena were the major ones.
After Miami city officials had spent more than $ 2 billion to build the Marlins Park baseball stadium, the mayor’s office was reluctant to finance such projects.  Accordingly, this time the home arena construction for the future MLS team rests entirely with investors and David personally. Nevertheless, the MLS committee reduced the franchise cost to $ 25 million in order to ease the financial burden for the 42-year-old athlete.
Miami soccer interest had been extremely high since the last Miami Fusion club ceased to exist in 2001. According to www.stakers.com, while Beckham and his investors were arguing with politicians and city authorities, the team of the second Miami echelon, owned by the Italian legend Paolo Maldini, was able to enter the US Open Cup quarterfinals, bringing together about 10,000 fans during the last match. And there is yet more proof that soccer in the US, though it is not as popular as American football, still merits attention.