David Beckham just made the cover of Forbes as a dollar billionaire — largely off the back of Inter Miami, which he co-owns and which is now valued at $1.45bn. England are preparing for the World Cup in Florida. Beckham is in the Cotswolds posting Instagram content about his chickens.
Something clearly didn't go to plan.
England based their warm-up camp in Palm Beach Gardens and played their first pre-tournament game in Tampa — more than 200 miles from Miami — at an American football stadium belonging to the Glazer family. The "plug and play" pitch had been laid just a week before the match, with the joins in the turf still visible. Thomas Tuchel wasn't impressed. "It was very uneven, very uneven," he said. "It was difficult to move the ball and move the ball quickly." An unnecessary distraction before a ball has been kicked competitively.
Scotland got the Beckham treatment. England didn't.
Here's the awkward bit: it was Scotland who ended up using Inter Miami's state-of-the-art Florida Blue Training Center in Fort Lauderdale. Coach Steve Clarke praised the facilities as "top-class" and specifically thanked "Mr Beckham, who is an old adversary of mine." Marcus Rashford also used the same complex, arriving early in the US for private training sessions with coach Colin Little.
England? Declined. Or couldn't agree terms. The FA has not been transparent about which.
Sources suggest the original plan did include a Miami game, and as recently as February the Miami Herald was reporting that England "may" play at the new Inter Miami stadium — the 26,500-seat Nu Stadium that opened in April. That never materialised. Reports indicate a financial disagreement played a role, and England reportedly shifted their hotel base away from Fort Lauderdale once it became clear they couldn't reach a deal with Inter Miami.
The stadium itself wasn't unavailable. Haiti played Peru there last Friday in front of a sold-out crowd.
What Beckham actually said
At the Forbes Iconoclast Summit, Beckham talked up the importance of bringing football heroes into American cities: "We have an academy here where we want our young players to see their heroes come into their cities, onto their TV screens and into their stadiums. And it really does inspire a next generation." He also tipped England to win the tournament.
His 26 per cent stake in Inter Miami is worth roughly $300m. Seven World Cup matches will be played in Miami. Beckham will be in the city. And yet England trained on a patchy American football field in Tampa and flew in and out on the same day.
For England's World Cup odds to hold up, they need momentum and cohesion in these warm-up weeks — not pitch controversies and logistical awkwardness. The Costa Rica friendly in Orlando at least offers a proper surface: Bermuda grass laid six months ago, the same type used across World Cup venues. The same grass that's in Inter Miami's stadium, as it happens.
Tuchel may prefer to keep Beckham at arm's length during preparations — the circus that follows him is real, and maybe England simply didn't want the noise. That's a defensible call. What's harder to defend is the Tampa farce: the wrong stadium, the wrong pitch, the wrong location, and a performance to match.
At Qatar 2022, Beckham walked into England's training base ahead of the quarter-final, received a personalised shirt from Gareth Southgate, and posed with half the squad. That moment felt organic. This one just feels like a deal that fell apart.
