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Beckham seeking new investor for MLS Miami

David Beckham Miami

David Beckham and his Miami team will have to move fast to find a new investor if they plan on joining MLS in 2018.

Beckham’s plans reportedly took a hit after talks broke down between his people and Qatari Sports Investments, who own Paris Saint-Germain. Simon Fuller, Beckham’s manager, is said to have been the main cause for the Qataris walking away from discussions.

There have been several rumored replacement investors for Beckham’s MLS team though.

According to Sports Illustrated, Miami real estate developer Arthur Falcone could be a primary candidate as an investor, after MLS commissioner Don Garber recently said Beckham was seeking a real estate mogul.

Another interested party could be Chinese Super League club Guangzhou Evergrande. The Asian Champions League champions are reportedly seeking partnerships with teams around the globe, including an MLS team.

Chinese fund CMC recently invested $400 million to take a 13% stake in New York City FC, and Evergrande could follow suit with Alibaba’s Jack Ma heavily involved.

No formal offers have been made in either case, but Beckham will need something concrete in the near future if Miami looks to join MLS as planned.

Will Beckham’s Miami team enter MLS on schedule? Who could you see joining Beckham as an investor?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. As much as I wish an MLS team was valued in the $3B, CMC actually invested $400M into the entire City Football Group which owns some Manchester club as well.

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  2. Time to end this nonsense. Give him his money back and move forward with Sacramento, St. Louis, Minnesota and maybe even San Antonio.

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    • It absolutely would be a huge loss if Beckham and Miami falls through. Its a massive market and an huge marketing coup for MLS having Becks in the league again. Win-win. I am getting annoyed with how lousy he and his camp are running things. It seems that he’s almost on the Vergara level of indecisiveness though.

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      • An unpopular, but correct opinion. The media market and overseas profile will be good for business. My heart may want every small but passionate fanbase to have a team, but a good brain knows that in the long run Beckham in Miami will make a difference in our league.

      • Past results (I know, I know – it’s a different era, a different version of MLS, but still) do not inspire confidence in Miami as a hot soccer market, or a hot sports market in general. I agree that Beckham’s international appeal is a plus, but are people around the world suddenly going to want to watch MLS games on TV simply because he owns a team? Hasn’t MLS’s profile changed since 2007 to the point that it no longer really needs Part 2 of the Beckham Project?

    • Beckham’s group will be fine. At last I checked Claure was still a billionaire and he will not let it fail. The Beckham group is just looking for additional partners to offload some of the risk.According to Le’ Equipe, PSG essentially put forward a proposition to, not only be a partner, but the “managing” partner, and subsuming Beckham to a figurehead. Simon Fuller, a partner and Becks agent made a counter proposal that essentially said, we will be the managing group and your involvement will be money and advisement. The PSG-Qatari deal was a take it or leave it one, and only got consideration because of Beckhams’ previous involvement of the team.

      There is still some way to go with entitlements, so the Beckham Group will not have to shell out the dollars for purchase and construction until those are received. But now is the time, as you apparently have terra firma, to start looking at financing, potential partners, risk assessment, and final stadium design. If the wheels come of this project, it will be in the entitlement phase and not for lack of partners.

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      • Entitlements? The Entitlement Phase? What is this?

        “At last I checked Claure was still a billionaire and he will not let it fail.” Unlike when he tried to launch MLS in Miami in 2009, which, um, he let fail.

        “The PSG-Qatari deal was a take it or leave it one, and only got consideration because of Beckhams’ previous involvement of the team.” How magnanimous of the Beckham group, letting the Qataris have a shot at handing over piles and stacks and wheelbarrows and entire bank vaults full of money, then just sitting over there and shutting up while the people who desperately needed the money to launch the team call all the shots. Can’t imagine why anyone would have turned down such an attractive opportunity.

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