The Beckham Boondoggle? The fight against Inter Miami’s stadium ‘landgrab’ | Inter Miami

The 20th anniversary of the film Bend It Like Beckham has been widely celebrated this month, but an unauthorized sequel of sorts is making waves in Miami.

The mini-documentary, crassly tag-lined ‘Don’t Bend Over For Beckham’, isn’t exactly canon. It’s less the seminal tale of female footballers that inspired a generation, and more a castigation of what critics call a “billion-dollar real estate heist” by the owners of Beckham’s Inter Miami soccer franchise – all under the guise of another stadium project involving public land and the taxpayer’s purse.

“Soccer is the shiny object, it’s the distraction here. It’s the loss leader for a land grab of the largest parcel of property owned by the people of the city of Miami,” the filmmaker and Miami native Billy Corben tells the Guardian.

City commissioners will vote next week on a pre-negotiated agreement to develop 131 acres of Melreese Park, near Miami International Airport. A ‘Yes’ vote would essentially green light the Miami Freedom Park and Soccer Village project.

The vision includes an office and retail complex, a 750-room hotel and, yes, a 25,000-seater stadium for the third-year MLS franchise. The team currently plays at a temporary (yet rather nice) arena 33 miles away in Fort Lauderdale.

“They could just build a stadium on the property they own in Overtown,” Corben says, referring to a previously preferred site near downtown Miami. “The problem is, it’s only sufficient for a stadium and some parking, and that’s not the plan here. It’s a real estate hustle.”

The team – fronted by Beckham, but backed mainly by local engineering tycoon Jorge Mas – points out the venture is 100% privately funded by the club’s ownership, unlike other high-profile stadium projects.

In a statement, Inter Miami told the Guardian: “The team is aware of a social media campaign aiming to disinform and confuse the public about the impact the Miami Freedom Park project will have on the City and its residents. We believe that everyone has the undeniable right to expect timely, truthful, and accurate information.”

The club goes on to say the deal will contribute $2.6bn in rent and $6.3bn in taxes over the 99-year lease, while generating $11bn for the local economy in the first 30 years. The team pledges over 15,000 jobs, paying at least $15 per hour, and vows to create the “single largest park in the City of Miami”. Inter Miami will foot the bill for decontaminating the land to make this so.

Yet that’s only half the picture, opponents say. The agreement with the city is for a no-bid lease, meaning other suitors couldn’t compete. Meanwhile, the proposed $3.5m annual rent is based upon an appraisal carried out in 2018 – before local rents soared exponentially. Rent payments also won’t be due in full until the stadium is complete. Once the lease is signed, future profits from the development will be overwhelmingly skewed in favor of the perpetual tenant. Opponents say the deal leaves hundreds of millions of dollars on the table, which could boost the tax coffers of one of the poorest cities in the nation, instead of billionaires like Mas.

The Scooby-Doo moment of Corben’s provocative short film reveals David P Samson as the scathing narrator. He’s the former baseball executive who negotiated the legendarily lopsided deal to build Marlins Park with public money.

“When Clarice Starling was going after Buffalo Bill, she went to Hannibal Lecter for help, so that’s what I did,” says Corben, who also directed the documentary Cocaine Cowboys and ESPN 30 for 30’s The U.

During his voiceover, Samson attests the Melreese Park deal is even worse than one he negotiated with the city. “Take it from me,” he says, “someone who actually negotiated with your politicians and almost single-handedly ended stadium public financing… Almost.”

In a follow-up interview Samson explained: “Marlins Park was a baseball stadium deal, Melreese Park is a real estate deal. I feel like people weren’t understanding that.

“There was not one dollar of money in the Marlins Park deal that could have been used for teachers, or police, or fire. It came from existing tax revenue from tourists. We didn’t take money from any other pot,” he claims. “With the Melreese deal there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity cost the city of Miami is leaving on the table because the value of the land for developers is so much greater.”

In this instance, the competitive bidding process – required by the city’s charter – was circumvented by a referendum of city residents, who granted permission for the local government to negotiate with Inter Miami. They have not approved the resulting agreement and won’t be asked to. Instead, it rests on four of the five city commissioners to sign-off, and Manolo Reyes is the only one openly against it.

He describes the stadium describes as “the bait for people to vote for developing that land” and says lawyers representing the city in negotiations reported a staggering 28 outstanding issues with the proposal.

“I don’t know how anyone can vote in favor of this contract when our own attorneys are saying the deal is not good,” he said in an interview. “This contract is extremely favorable to the Mas family; in the amount that they are paying and all the other benefits they are receiving.”

Reyes wants the deal torn up so the city can pursue better terms. Or, better still, keep Melreese Park as the green space and golf course that house’s the city’s First Tee program. It mentors underprivileged youths through golf and provides college scholarships.

Corben, though, isn’t on some crusade to save a golf course. For him, the film is about preventing the latest Miami sports “boondoggle”, from what he calls “oligarch” team owners. It’s a call to action for the city’s residents to demand a more transparent process.

“We are notorious in south Florida and throughout the United States for making some of the worst sports welfare deals in history,” he adds. “I believe David Beckham came here, to some extent, in good faith. I think he just wants soccer. He was looking for properties where he could just put a soccer stadium and some parking lots.

“When Jorge Mas intervened, he wanted to make it a real estate hustle and he recruited David Beckham into this boondoggle. I think it’s been incredibly embarrassing for them.”

The film, which has already amassed around 350,000 views, reserves the most ire for elected officials like the project’s key cheerleader, Miami mayor Francis Suarez, and city manager Arthur Noriega, who handled the negotiations. “These people are ill equipped to negotiate the biggest real estate deal in the history of Miami,” Corben says.

“I don’t begrudge them [Beckham and Mas] trying to negotiate the best deal they possibly can. That’s their job and responsibility to their team. But I want to know who is representing the taxpayers and residents who own that property.”