David Beckham, the owner of Inter Miami, has disclosed how long he pursued Lionel Messi before finally signing the Argentine this summer.
When Messi left Paris Saint-Germain last month on a free transfer, he had the choice of going back to his old club Barcelona, who were working extremely hard to get him back together. However, the 36-year-old ultimately decided to take his skills to Major League Soccer.
“I never thought I would have the same feeling as an owner as I had when I was a player,” Beckham told The Athletic. “When I got the phone call, I had the feeling I had when I walked out at Old Trafford or Wembley. I was like, ‘We’ve just beaten all competition to sign the greatest player to ever play our game’.”
Beckham opened up on his long-standing dream to sign Messi, which began ten years ago and started stepping up in the past few seasons.
“It all came from a conversation over a glass of wine at dinner, Beckham recalled. “I turn to Jorge [Mas, Miami co-owner] and say, ‘One day, we need Messi to come to our club’. It was probably when we first met.
“I actually found on my phone the other day one of the first presentations that [advertising agency] Doubleday & Cartwright did – they mocked up one of the jerseys with the logo on and Leo was wearing it. That was ten years ago. So it was always in my mind. I suppose every owner of a sports franchise thinks, ‘We want to bring the best players to our club’. Does it happen for everyone? Of course not. But we were sat at dinner and we were like, ‘OK, if we could bring Leo for our market, for our fans, for this part of the world, there’s no one better’.”
Revealing a secret meeting with the superstar in Barcelona in September 2019, Beckham continued: “We got on a plane and flew to Barcelona from London secretly. We snuck into a hotel, met Jorge Messi and started the conversation.
“It purely went, ‘We would love your son to play for our team one day. We know he can’t come yet, but one day we would love to have Leo in Miami’. Then obviously Jorge did an incredible job creating a narrative around what he could do for the sport in this country, what he could do for MLS and what he could do for Inter Miami.”
Despite making a serious effort to get Messi this summer, Beckham was aware that a deal might not have been possible. The former England player recalled his disbelief when he found out that Miami had won the race.
“I was in Japan with the family and woke up at 5am because my phone kept vibrating,” he said. “My wife was like, ‘Really?! Turn your phone off!’.
“I look on my phone and I’m like, ‘What’s happened? Something’s happened!’. I put my glasses on and I’m like, ‘Leo’s coming! It’s done! He has announced it!’. My wife was like, ‘What do you mean he has announced it?’. I said, ‘He has gone on TV and said he’s coming to Inter Miami!’. I get goosebumps talking about it.
“I phoned Jorge [Mas] straight away and got emotional because I know what we’ve gone through over the last few years. Trying to build this club, the obstacles, the challenges – trying to get land, going to legal battles… for all of the problems we’ve had, this one moment changed everything. It changed our whole club. Once Victoria woke up properly, she hugged me, and that’s when I got emotional again.
“I have come in every single morning at 7.30am to just see him — to just know it’s real.”