Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami ( Miami International Football Club), known as Inter Miami CF or Inter Miami, is an American professional soccer club based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Established in 2018, the club began playing in the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS) during the 2020 season. The club garnered international attention prior to its founding because of club president and co-owner David Beckham and again in 2023 when it signed Lionel Messi. Following the signing, the club won its first major trophy, the expanded 2023 Leagues Cup, the North American zonal competition for the CONCACAF region.
History
Expansion
In November 2012, MLS commissioner Don Garber confirmed the league's renewed interest in placing an expansion franchise in Miami, after the Miami Fusion folded following the 2001 season and an expansion bid led by Miami-based Bolivian telecom entrepreneur Marcelo Claure and FC Barcelona failed in 2009.
When David Beckham, whose business manager Simon Fuller had the idea of giving him an option to purchase an expansion team at a price of $25 million when he joined the league in 2007, ended his playing career in April 2013, the MLS held discussions with Fuller about several expansion targets, including Miami. That same year, other investors, including Italian financier Alessandro Butini and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen M. Ross expressed interest in owning a Miami franchise as well.
In 2013, when David Beckham was interviewed by CNN, he thanked Fuller for the ground breaking MLS deal he had negotiated back in 2007 and specifically the clause that Fuller had insisted on inserting to the player's benefit: “When I signed my contract six, seven years ago, my manager Simon Fuller actually got a clause in the contract that enabled me to have a franchise at the end of my playing career”. In his December 2013 State of the League address, Garber had identified Beckham and Fuller as potential owners in Miami. Later that month, on December 17, Miami-Dade County commissioners voted unanimously to allow Mayor Carlos A. Giménez to negotiate with the Beckham-led group on a new stadium in downtown Miami. The league announced that Beckham exercised his option on February 5, 2014, and that Miami Beckham United, the investment group led by Beckham, Fuller and Claure, would own an expansion franchise in Miami, assuming that financing for a stadium could be agreed upon. In presentations to officials and potential investors, the ownership group used "Miami Vice" and "Miami Current" as working titles for the club. After its initial stadium proposals fell through, Commissioner Garber reiterated in August 2014 that the expansion would not be approved until a downtown stadium plan was secured and it was only after Fuller introduced Beckham to the Jorge and José Mas, that the plan was green lit. Beckham bought Fuller out in May 2019.
On January 29, 2018, the Miami Beckham United group (consisting of Beckham, Claure, Fuller, Masayoshi Son [founder and CEO of SoftBank] and Jorge and José Mas, the Miami-based leaders of telecommunications and construction company MasTec) four years after the ownership's original announcement of pursuing a team, was awarded the twenty-fifth MLS franchise and was set to launch in the 2020 season. The announcement represented part of a larger MLS expansion that would increase its number of teams to 26 by 2020 and 30 after that. Since Beckham's original announcement of his intention to place a team in Miami in 2014, Orlando City, New York City FC, Atlanta United, Minnesota United, Los Angeles FC, and FC Cincinnati have all begun MLS play. Paul McDonough was hired as sporting director effective August 4. The team's ownership group was later renamed Miami Freedom Park LLC. They announced Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami, shortened to Inter Miami CF, as the club's official name on September 5, 2018.
On December 30, 2019, former Uruguay national team player and C.F. Monterrey manager Diego Alonso was announced as the club's inaugural head coach.
Early years (2020–2023)