David Beckham today achieves an unwanted landmark in his aim to launch his Major League Soccer team in Miami.

It is exactly 1,000 days since the former England captain announced - to great fanfare - that he had exercised his option for an MLS expansion franchise and would seek to build that team in the Florida city.

Since then 'Miami Beckham United', as the club is provisionally called, has painfully struggled to get off the ground and there remain some doubts that the franchise will ever be admitted to the league.

Beckham and his partners - Simon Fuller and Marcelo Claure - are quietly confident they will finally gain entry into MLS early next year, however.

To provide some context over the lack of progress, since the Beckham launch date of Feb 5, 2014, another professional soccer team in the city - Miami FC - was announced and, at the weekend, the club completed its first full season in the North American Soccer League.

In MLS itself, for example, Atlanta was awarded a franchise in April 2014 (two months after the Beckham announcement): its team, Atlanta United, will join the league next year.