The New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony has just joined the sports team owners club. This week he became the owner of Puerto Rican soccer team, Puerto Rico FC. He announced at a Thursday news conference that his new club, Puerto Rico FC, will join the North American Soccer League and start playing in 2016.
In an exclusive interview with ESPN FC, Anthony stated “My passion for soccer has always been there,” “I just always kept it to myself and among my circle. Going to games, sneaking into games and just watching and being around the sport over the years. The more time I started spending in Puerto Rico over the past six, seven years I realized that there was kind of a void down there on my island. The island didn’t really have anything that they could kind of call their own, that they could represent not just on the island but from a global standpoint.”
Puerto Rico FC will be the NASL’s 13th club after the league recently added Miami FC on May 20. In spite of his injury and his new venture, Anthony insisted that he will not be distracted from his day job, playing for the Knicks, stating “Basketball is my No. 1 thing,” “I’m very hands-on but it’s more about taking the time now during the offseason. I spend a lot of time in Puerto Rico training. I’ll do like a mini-training camp down there. Right now it’s about putting the right people in place so that when I’m back to my regular job, basketball is my main focus. I’ll have a solid group of people running Puerto Rico FC on a day-to-day basis.”