Soccer stadium dust-up embarrassed a global celebrity: David Beckham

Soccer star David Beckham can never seem to duck the cameras, but a feud over a promised park at his stadium in Fort Lauderdale has thrust him into an embarrassing new spotlight.

Fort Lauderdale’s vice mayor, Heather Moraitis, accused Beckham and his partners last month of reneging on a promise to build a public park. The promise was part of their deal to build the DRV PNK soccer stadium on public land once home to the former Lockhart Stadium.

International press picked up the story days after it first appeared in the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Some of the stories ran in papers based in London, where Beckham owns a home.

Mayor Dean Trantalis said he was shocked by the whole thing, and apparently Beckham was too.

“We understand through his partners that he was extremely embarrassed and felt betrayed by the comments of the vice mayor,” Trantalis said. “It hurt his reputation.”

Trantalis skewered Moraitis in a public slide show Thursday, accusing her of misrepresenting the facts, putting the city’s relationship with Miami Beckham United at risk and bringing negative attention to Inter Miami CF and her own city.

“We cannot diss people in the public, especially in the international press,” Trantalis told Moraitis. “Especially people we’ve had photos taken with and dined with. That’s not nice.”

Longtime activist Mary Fertig, who was watching from the audience, said it was the mayor’s 23-slide PowerPoint that wasn’t nice.

“I feel like I’m in the middle of a family feud and everyone’s in a big argument,” she told the commission. “This is still public land. And if it’s going to be used [for women’s soccer] the public needs to be part of that conversation.”

The next day, Fertig accused the mayor of shaming Moraitis.

“This meeting was supposed to be about potential uses for the Lockhart community site,” she said. “But the only PowerPoint shown was about smearing Vice Mayor Moraitis.”

‘I will not be silenced’

Moraitis, who says she had “zero” clue she would be the subject of an elaborate slide show, called it an intimidation tactic, a 24-minute surprise attack designed to shut her up.

But it won’t work, she says.

“I feel like you’re trying to silence me,” she told the mayor. “My people want a park. I am going to shout from the rooftop of City Hall. I will not be silenced.”

The next day, Moraitis continued her rallying cry.

“The truth is every single inch they take away from the 20-acre park is taking away from the residents of District 1,” she said. “Every single thing I said I meant and I stand by it. If they want to change the 20 acres, to me that’s a broken promise.”

As for the mayor’s assertion that she dined with Beckham and his partners while they were courting the city, Moraitis says she declined the invite.

“I never had lunch with David Beckham,” she said. “I refused to meet with him before the vote. I didn’t want anyone to say I approved the deal because I was star-struck.”

What happened to the park?

Two years ago, Beckham and his partners made a deal with Fort Lauderdale to build a $160 million stadium on taxpayer-owned land. Inter Miami built the new DRV PNK soccer stadium without a hitch. In return for a 50-year rent-free lease, they agreed to build a park on the neighboring 20-acre parcel to the south.

Under the agreement, the park must be built by July 2022. If they miss the deadline, the city can build the park at Miami Beckham United’s expense.

The group is now talking about bringing a professional women’s league to Fort Lauderdale but needs the city’s blessing to build a training facility on a portion of the land slated for a park — a proposal Moraitis fiercely opposes.

To this day, questions remain over when the park will be built. As of Friday, no one could say.

Work was delayed by the pandemic and the vice mayor’s request for more time to get public input on what would go in the park, said attorney Stephanie Toothaker, attorney for Beckham United.

Moraitis still says she wants every inch of the 20-acre field dedicated to a destination park.

Late change in the game

But this new proposal to bring in a women’s national league team might get in the way.

The final call is up to commissioners.

If Inter Miami were to bring a professional women’s soccer league to town, a women’s training facility and practice fields would rise on the same land of the new park they’ve promised to build.

Inter Miami Vice President Pablo Alverez said it’s still way too soon to know whether Beckham United can lure a women’s soccer league.

Moraitis says time is running out and wants to see work begin. But, as the mayor and Inter Miami officials point out, a site plan has yet to be approved by the commission.

“Commissioner Moraitis is demanding that we start — but start what?” Alverez said in a recent letter to the city. “The city has not approved a plan or design to begin building the south side park.”

The original agreement from 2019 called for a walking trail, park, playground, dog park, public soccer fields and a field maintenance building. A pool, splash pad and community center were also planned, but on the city’s dime.

In his letter, Alverez says Inter Miami patiently waited while Moraitis worked through various plans and designs for the south side of the site, making changes sometimes from week to week.

“To this day, Inter Miami still believes in and wants a community park on the south side of the site,” Alvarez wrote. “However, we also believe that new opportunities have emerged since the project first began. We feel that expanding and growing women’s soccer would be an amazing long-term addition to our stadium and our facility.”

On Thursday, the commission asked Alvarez how far along things were.

“We’d have to reach out to the organization and apply for a team,” he said. “It would be a process, but this is a 50-year facility.”

Keeping all options open

Toothaker offered more details on Friday.

Jorge Mas, Inter Miami’s managing owner, “has had preliminary discussions about the possibility of bringing a professional women’s soccer team and girl’s soccer to the city of Fort Lauderdale,” Toothaker said. “They have not gotten to the point where they are negotiating an acquisition.”

The Lockhart property has a history rooted in community dreams and support, Fertig told commissioners in a recent email. The former stadium hosted its first high school game in 1959. In 1962, the New York Yankees began holding spring training on the property. The Baltimore Orioles came to town in 1986. And professional soccer came to Lockhart by way of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers in 1977. The team departed in 2016.

Inter Miami has only added to the rich tradition of Fort Lauderdale’s own Field of Dreams, Fertig says. But she and other activists insist the city allow no changes to the park plan without public input.

Rafael Ferreiro, a professional soccer coach who lives in Fort Lauderdale, has been watching the drama from the sidelines.

Ferreiro said he’d like to see the city make room for both a park and a national women’s soccer league.

“Park space is very important here in Fort Lauderdale,” he said. “We’re a concrete city. And women’s soccer is a massive market here in the U.S. If they can find a way to do both, I think that would be phenomenal. I’m on both sides of the fence.”

The mayor says he’s not sure when the matter might come up for a vote.

“We still are in the process of generating designs,” he said. “We’ll have another meeting that will show conceptual drawings of what can be built there. And then we’ll get feedback from the public. This commission wants to keep all options open.”

Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @Susannah_Bryan