Dispute over names: Is there a connection between Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami and the Italian giants Inter Milan?
Lionel Messi’s new club Inter Miami isn’t to be mistaken as a subsidiary side to the Italian football giant, Inter Milan. The two have in fact been involved in a litigation since 2019 over the use of the prefix. The word, ‘Inter’ has different meanings for the two, The Indian Express explains.
What’s with the Inter in Messi’s Miami?
Sometime between June 3rd and 5th, worldwide searches for ‘Inter Miami’ increased 50 times on Google. More than any other sports team in the United States – including the two that were playing the NBA Finals – they wanted to know about the 15th-ranked team in the Eastern Conference of the 16th most popular league in the Global Football Rankings. On Monday, while the Major League Soccer club still lay at the bottom of the points table, it became the 4th most followed US sports team on Instagram. A followers count more than the New England Patriots (4.9m) and Dallas Cowboys (4.5m) – top two teams in the National Football League (NFL) – combined. They may finally call it football in the States, thanks to Lionel Andres Messi. Inter Miami will be the home to the latest World Cup winning captain for the next two-and-a-half-years. But what’s with the Inter in Miami?
Those familiar with the sport know it is the prefix for the decorated Italian club from the city of Milan, born out of the oldest football club in the Italian capital. It dates back to 1908, a year after the Italian Football Association introduced a law that didn’t allow teams to sign foreign players. AC Milan – three-time champions by then – protested the law by sitting out the next season. A few among the hierarchy at the eight-year old club looked at the injustice as reason enough to form a faction of their own. A club that would
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