2023-07-16 14:00:06
MiamiThe day the signing of Sergio Busquets by Inter Miami was completed, the club’s general manager (here known as CBO) was tired from so many days in a row at work, but satisfied. After Messi came Busquets. It was the night of the St. John’s Eve and, to celebrate, he ate the traditional cream and pine nut cake bought in a business of some Majorcans who have been living in Miami for some time. That this was the way to celebrate it is not surprising: the key piece in the signing of Messi by Inter is Catalan.
Xavier Asensi Brufau (Barcelona, 1981) has preferred not to do interviews before the presentation of the Argentine. “There are no holes in the schedule. The city has gone crazy,” says his secretary. “The city? The country!” adds a club worker as Asensi, in the background, continues to talk on the phone in his office. At one point he sticks his head out to say hello. “It hasn’t been easy, all in all”, he says. Inter’s offices are in the elegant neighborhood of Coral Gables, in facilities owned by Jorge Mas, the main shareholder of Inter Miami along with David Beckham. It was the two of them who selected Asensi when they started the club, after analyzing a few resumes. And signing Messi was already one of the priorities then. Bringing the Argentine to Miami became the biggest challenge for this Sabadell native, a challenge that came right at a time of change in his career.
At the beginning of 2021, Asensi took advantage of the approaching elections for the presidency of Barça to leave the club, where he had worked for more than a decade. “I remember that time with sadness”, he admits in reference to the fact that he was the only employee of the club who refused to pass and divide invoices that he did not know were through his area. Well, it was the Barçagate case. “As you can imagine, like in any company if your superiors ask you for something and you refuse, let’s just say it wouldn’t be the best of situations. A phrase that sums up my philosophy of life quite well would be the one that says ‘you are the owner of your silences and a slave to your words’. And I add: ‘And especially of your deeds'”, he explained to the ARA in 2021. Asensi was able to leave with a clear conscience, but sad to see what had happened to the club he loves.
When he had returned from Hong Kong, it seemed that the time had come to put down roots at home after so many years away. It wasn’t like that. In October 2020, he received the call from Inter Miami. And he understood that he could not refuse it. “In 2026 there will be the World Cup in the United States, it is a growing market, the ideal city for the Latin market. We are in the ideal place”, he admits.
Miami, a new stage for Xavier Asensi
Miami was a new stage for this former handball player with a degree in international business and a specialization in international economics from ESCI-UPF, who already knew the United States from tours and an executive degree in interpersonal dynamics for executives from ‘high achiever at Stanford University. At the age of 21, he had gone to China to work as a market analyst for the Haifu multinational in the health sector. He later came into contact with Barça, where he started working from below in 2010, promoting the rugby section and signing an agreement with the USAP of Perpignan. In 2011 he was tasked with looking after the Asian market, creating and leading the Asia-Pacific office from 2013, based in Hong Kong, where he moved. In 2018 he returned home to become the club’s new global commercial director alongside Italian Francesco Calvo, from whom he would inherit the position. During his years the club became the Barça with 1,000 million in revenue.
“Miami is the ideal place to grow this project. We want Miami to be synonymous with football”, he explains. The most Latino city in the United States did not have an MLS soccer club until recently. And with the arrival of Messi, this club that is only living its third season wants to make it big.
Behind Inter are David Beckham, who was offered to invest in an MLS club for $25 million when he played in the United States, as well as construction entrepreneur Jorge Mas, who bought the shares of Marcelo Claure, Bolivian businessman and current shareholder of Girona. Creating a powerful club in Miami was an old idea, with a first project called Miami Fusion that lasted four years, from 1997 to 2001. Claure had even proposed to Barça, in 2009, that they invest in a Barça from Miami, with no luck . The winning bet would be that of Beckham, who lives in the city, and his new partner, Jorge Mas. A man who explains today’s Miami.
His father, Jorge Mas Canosa, left Cuba fleeing Fidel Castro and built an empire while becoming a key figure in Miami politics, lobbying Washington to fight Castroism. The son has grown the family empire and has finally entered football (he has just bought Zaragoza). With distant Catalan roots, the Mas teamed up with David Beckham to create this club that has revolutionized everything this summer. It hasn’t been easy. “The local league works differently than in Europe. Here the idea is that the whole league improves at the same time and, therefore, to sign players you have to comply with certain rules”, explains Asensi, who has partly used the case of his boss, Beckham, to sign Messi. When the Englishman signed for the LA Galaxy in 2007, it was with an imaginative contract with clauses relating to percentages of shirt sales and the possibility of being a shareholder in a club in the league. You can’t understand the signing of Messi without Beckham. But, Beckham and Asensi have worked with Apple and Adidas, trying to find the fit in a growing league. Some rival clubs are already celebrating, because tickets to see Inter away from home have sold more in recent days… still without Messi. Others are afraid to see one of the younger clubs tread hard.
Messi, a new icon in Miami
Asensi highlights the club’s ambition. But he has already said that they want it to be one of the key moments in the history of American sports, where football does not stop growing. In recent months, Asensi flew to Barcelona to speak with Jorge Messi and hurried back to Miami to negotiate with the league the terms of the contract of a player who has revolutionized the city. A few weeks ago, an urban artist already made a mural of Messi in the Wynwood neighborhood, known for its graffiti. It was the first of many. Beckham himself went in person to see Messi’s face appear on a giant building.
Inter, who will build a modern stadium near the city’s airport, currently play at the DRV PNK Stadium, a small venue in the north of the city where they have already installed extra bleachers to welcome Messi. To sign the Argentine, it took years of talks with the player and his father, taking advantage of the fact that Jorge Messi usually spends months in Miami. In fact, Jorge Mas had already spoken to him in 2019, when Inter had not yet played a single match. Long conversations explaining to the Messis why Miami was the ideal destination on the day they closed the stage in Europe. When Asensi was signed, someone with experience dealing with stars like Messi arrived.
Not even the big final offer from the Saudis has prevented the Argentine from arriving at a young club, where they have worked hard to have him, given that the rules of the MSL have forced Inter to look for solutions to tie a player so expensive It has been the price of wanting to revolutionize the soccer. Messi will earn between 50 and 60 million dollars per year, according to Mas.
But it’s not all Messi. Inter, which is not in the league this year, but is already in the semi-finals of the Cup, is creating an image to connect the US public with Latin America. An image, a future new stadium and even the idea that “Miami is football” by bringing national team matches there, for example.
On July 21, Messi will debut with Inter, dressed in pink. The color of the city, of the coral of the Caribbean Sea, the pink of Art Deco Miami of the 1930s.
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