Fort Lauderdale Endorses Beckham Team's Temporary Home

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL -- Fort Lauderdale Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously gave their support to a plan by soccer legend David Beckham and businessman Jorge Mas to construct a temporary home for Miami's new Major League Soccer team at the site of the former Lockhart Stadium which has fallen into disrepair but once served as the home of the now defunct Fort Lauderdale Strikers.

Club Miami Internacional de Futbol hopes to play its first two seasons on the site and then use it for a future team that will be the equivalent of a minor league club.

Miami voters approved a referendum last November that allows a group led by Mas and Beckham to place their proposed Freedom Park soccer complex on the site of the city-owned Melreese Country Club, not far from Miami International Airport.

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The new stadium will most likely not be ready until 2021 though Miami's new Major League Soccer team is set to take the pitch for the first time in 2020.

"I just think we deserve a little better than that -- to being someone’s second date to the prom," soccer fan Derek Reese told Fort Lauderdale commissioners prior to the vote.

He said he met his wife at Lockhart Stadium, which is named after a former Fort Lauderdale commissioner. He urged commissioners to give priority to an alternate proposal.

"If it were up to me we'd bring back the Baltimore Orioles for spring training," added Fort Lauderdale resident Steve Webber. The Orioles play their spring training home games at Sarasota's Ed Smith Stadium. But before moving there, the Orioles played in Fort Lauderdale from 1996-2009.

Watch legendary soccer player David Beckham's vision for Lockhart Stadium along with businessman Jorge Mas below: