Reuters Soccer Blog
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Soul of soccer survives in Florida
One of the most appealing aspects of football is that, unlike with most sports, you can find the passion of the game in almost every corner of the world, often hidden away in the most unlikely places.
What separates football from, say Formula One or tennis, is that even at the lower levels of the game you can still get the buzz of being a fan even without the top stars or the fully-serviced facilities.
On Saturday, after a long wait, I got my fix again watching Miami FC.
Barcelona’s American dream comes to nothing
The prospect of former Real Madrid player David Beckham lining up against a new Barcelona-Miami franchise was a soccer marketing man’s dream — the most marketable man in the game against one of the biggest team brands, playing in the ‘capital of the Americas’.
A couple of months ago that scenario looked on the cards, with Beckham tied into a long-term deal with the L.A Galaxy and Barcelona’s Miami bid for a 2011 MLS expansion slot widely considered a ‘shoe in’.
Now, though, Barcelona’s bid is dead in the water and Beckham, enjoying his football with Milan in Serie A, is doing his utmost to avoid having to return to the U.S.
MLS, Barcelona and Miami-based Bolivian businessman Marcelo Claure made a joint announcement that cited “adverse market conditions” as the reason behind the decision to halt their bid.
No specifics were mentioned although one has to wonder whether Barca and Claure were put off by MLS’s $40 million expansion fee. It takes a lot of money to set up a professional soccer operation and to hand over that amount of cash, as a membership fee, in the current economic climate, could be viewed as a deterrent.
If you read MLS Commissioner Don Garber, however – and it was not so long ago that he said the Miami bid was taking the expansion process to “the next level” – you have the impression it was the league that pulled the plug on the ambitious project.
“We are convinced Miami is a soccer market but we are not convinced it is an MLS market at this point and for the stability of the league we had to make sure we made a smart decision that didn’t come back to haunt us later,” he said.
I think your instinct was right: importing a soccer brand was probably not the right answer. Let us know how the soccerthon for Miami FC goes. I remember a very popular one at cash-strapped Hamburg club FC St Pauli a few years back. They’re still in the second division of the Bundesliga, but they remain authentic.
I followed the Diplomats when I lived in N. Virgina, and I was was there for the beginning of MLS with the Metrostars when I lived in NYC. I followed that club for 12 years into it’s Red Bull present. There were more downs than ups over those years, including less than 3000 in Giants Stadium to see an Open Cup final with Chicago. We lost.
I moved to Florida a year ago, and it is great to be back in the stands to watch Miami play at Lockhart. I used to watch Metro play Fusion back in the day, and I envied the team that got to play in Lockhart. Now I can be in that stadium to see good teams play, up close and personal. Vamos Miami!