The North American Soccer League, which has had Major League Soccer encroach on several of its markets and even poach one of its teams, fired a shot of its own Wednesday by reaching an agreement to field a team in Miami.

The new club, Miami F.C., will begin league play next year. Its ownership group is led by the media entrepreneur Riccardo Silva and includes the former Italian national team defender Paolo Maldini.

Its placement in Miami could be seen as a direct challenge to M.L.S., which announced in February 2014 that it had awarded a team in the city to David Beckham. Beckham’s ownership deal is contingent on his building a soccer-specific stadium in the city — a hurdle he and his partners have had little success clearing.

M.L.S. and the N.A.S.L., the top two tiers of American professional soccer, have been in competition in several markets in recent years. M.L.S. will field an expansion team in Atlanta in 2017, where the second-tier Atlanta Silverbacks already play, and it will bring an N.A.S.L. team, Minnesota United F.C., into the league after the club reaches an agreement on its own downtown stadium. The target date for Minnesota United’s entry into M.L.S. is 2018.