Cover (L-R) Lionel Messi and David Beckham during the UEFA Champions League quarter-final match between FC Barcelona and Paris Saint Germain at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Spain in 2013 (Photo: Getty Images)
(L-R) Lionel Messi and David Beckham during the UEFA Champions League quarter-final match between FC Barcelona and Paris Saint Germain at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Spain in 2013 (Photo: Getty Images)
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From players on opposing football teams to owner and star of the same team, here’s a look at the history of two of the world’s most incredible athletes
When David Beckham and Lionel Messi last met on the pitch as players, of Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona respectively, their careers were on very different trajectories. In fact, Beckham even joked that the sight of Messi running past him prompted his retirement.
But now that they are reunited as owner and megastar signing at Inter Miami CF, they are very much on the same path—and that final meeting on the pitch may even have sowed the seeds for a deal that stunned the world of football.
In convincing Messi, an eight-time Ballon D’Or winner and recently-crowned World Cup champion, to round off his glittering career in Florida, Beckham also revolutionised football in the United States for a second time.
Much has already been written about Beckham’s inspired foresight back in 2007 when he joined LA Galaxy and Major League Soccer, and put domestic US football firmly on the world map.
The Englishman also had a clause in that contract giving him an option to launch a new MLS franchise club (for US$25 million) upon his retirement, which he and his partners exercised in 2014 and began building a club that eventually joined MLS in 2020.
As Beckham and his partners ground away at building a club and infrastructure, Messi was 7,500 kilometres away, winning trophy after trophy for Barca, setting goal-scoring records and building his Ballon D’Or collection. Had anyone suggested back then that his future club career would include a stint at a fledgling club in the States, they would probably have been laughed at.
But if you studied Messi’s Barcelona environment and lifestyle, you would know that, for all his accolades and astronomical earnings, the man himself is down-to-earth and shuns the celebrity lifestyle. Instead, he’d created a “little Rosario” (his Argentinian hometown), surrounded himself with family and friends, and was known for stopping by the local supermarket or coffee shop.
In other words, he did the kind of things social media shows him doing in Miami today. Clearly, someone at the club did their homework on the man and that helped turn a next-to-impossible long shot into a reality.
Whether it really was Miami’s Hispanic culture, the Beckham factor, or the lure of a profit-sharing deal with the club and its parent league, Inter Miami got their man. And, even before the ink had dried on the deal, the “Messi bounce” began.
Remember that US25 million investment by Beckham’s team? Well, the asset they built is growing in value at an extraordinary rate.
Before Messi joined, Forbes valued Inter Miami at US$600. Last July, after his signing, the club’s managing owner Jorge Mas told CNBC last that valuation could reach between US$1.3 billion and US$1.5 billion in the next year. This is partly to do with a broader increase in value across all MLS clubs, but it is largely down to the Messi factor.
Booming ticket and shirt sales play their part, but Inter Miami is also reaping the reward of commercial partnership renewals as well as escalating payment clauses in contracts which were dependent on a global superstar joining the club.
Thanks to Messi’s arrival, Beckham and his partners have already made Inter Miami the preferred club of fans, celebrities and sporting superstars across the USA.
Now, as the club comes to Hong Kong for Tatler XFEST and its only Greater China stop-off on a hot-ticket pre-season tour, the conquest of Asia is imminent. A decade after their last on-field meeting, this latest Beckham-Messi match-up is one that both men are winning.
Tatler XFEST Hong Kong is recognised by the Major Sports Events Committee and is sponsored by Prudential, Fullerton Ocean Park Hotel, Adidas, BMW, Chopard, Mastercard and is supported by the Football Association of Hong Kong, Hong Kong International Airport, Brand Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Tourism Board. The exclusive local broadcaster is Now TV and the exclusive event ticketing partner is Klook. For more information visit the website tatlerasia.com/xfesthk.
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