good for Beckham, but not for sport?

[desprateseagull]

so, Becks has secured the biggest contract in sport, with a move to LA Galaxy.

This is clearly a good deal, getting him (and Posh) closer to the tv/movie industry, his soccer academys, and away from intrusive UK/European press..

itt can also be seen as giving a finger to ManU / England bosses, who wrote him off.

however, this can only increase the eventual costs to the fans - ticket prices, ppv or cable subscriptions etc.

especially when other players start demanding the same (or similar) ball breaking deals.

at a local level- watchng BHA even now is expesnive. imagine 10years down the line, at Falmer, with some hot players on the team.

a game ticket would be..

 

[REDLAND]

Hes copped out and decided money is more important than playing 'top' level footer.. This saddens me really but I can understand why his toys have been thrown out the pram !!

 

[tainan]

He's considering the whole 'Beckham business', in which football is becoming less and less significant, compared to his / their other interests

 

[Beach Hut]

He's considering the whole 'Beckham business', in which football is becoming less and less significant, compared to his / their other interests

Precisely - the Beckham Brand will live on long past his playing days

 

[Seagull Stew]

What I was wondering was, what if Beckham's career goes drastically downhill over the next couple of years. (He is 34 after all). Will his manager be able to not pick him or will he have to play him for the entirety of his 5 year contract, keeping much better players out of the team.

That surely can't be a good thing for the development of American "soccer" and if there's ever a case of a player being bigger than a club, then this is it.

 

[Everest]

a game ticket would be..

... unthinkable unless you're a STH.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Hes copped out and decided money is more important than playing 'top' level footer.. This saddens me really but I can understand why his toys have been thrown out the pram !!

that is a bit silly isnt it.

We have not the faintest idea if any other "big club" offered anything to him with regards to trasfer/employment etc etc.

It became obvious he was forced out of manU by Fergusson and forced out of England by mcClaren and now his skills are lost to European football

Not to worry, we have lots of foreign stars coming over here who are far better than Beckham, like Shevchenko, Crespo, Davids etc etc who stay around for the big bucks and then f*** off home. Oh and also loads of foreign managers Like Mohrinho, Benitez, Wenger who would much rather buy foreign talent that British players....but hey..who cares. As someone said on here yesterday, if people want to be entertained, they would rather watch foreign players....fair enough.

Sooner rather than later, the Sky TV bubble will burst, we already have Sentana or what ever its called ( another subsciption) and money will not be available and then these players will all f*** off to follow the big bucks...who knows it may be the USA...and then we will be back to watching British football again as opposed to all the Chelsea harlem Globetrotters Stuff that is prevalent in the Premiership and Championship.

 

[eastlondonseagull]

Good for the sport imo. I think he'll help promote football over the pond, and finally eradicate that shit sport called American football.

Well maybe not the last bit, but I do think it'll increase the interest in proper football overseas, and that can only be good.

 

[CHAPPERS]

Hes copped out and decided money is more important than playing 'top' level footer.. This saddens me really but I can understand why his toys have been thrown out the pram !!

Has he? He's looking after himself and his family.

I'm not surprised he turned his back on England to be honest. So would I if I was made an example of by a manager who doesn't seem to have a clue. Beckham wasn't the worst midfielder atthe world cup and still has a lot to offer England so why drop him to make a point? f*** that, I'd go and play for half a million a week instead of play for that blotchy twat in charge of England.

 

[Nemesis]

He's considering the whole 'Beckham business', in which football is becoming less and less significant, compared to his / their other interests

I wish I had a "less significant business" that paid me £150 million over 5 years.

 

[Robot Chicken]

What I was wondering was, what if Beckham's career goes drastically downhill over the next couple of years. (He is 34 after all)

He's 31 (born 1975)

 

[Wozza]

Not to worry, we have lots of foreign stars coming over here who are far better than Beckham, like Shevchenko, Crespo, Davids....

Not fair to put those three in the same sentence.

Yes, Davids is milking it during the twilight of his career.

But Crespo is a great player who never quite hit it off here, and Shevchenko is still in his prime, albeit struggling with a lack of crosses. Blame Chelsea for those.

There are plenty of outstanding foreign stars in the Premiership.

I hate the little twat, but in 2007 Cristiano Ronaldo is 100 times the player Beckham is.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Blatently a move that has been orchestrated by Posh. She has failed miserably at trying to find any success since her Spice Girl days and perhaps she fancies a chance at cracking Hollywood. Plus, they will be closer to Tom and Katie.

 

[Wozza]

Blatently a move that has been orchestrated by Posh. She has failed miserably at trying to find any success since her Spice Girl days and perhaps she fancies a chance at cracking Hollywood.

She recently admitted that she can't act for toffee, so I doubt that.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Not fair to put those three in the same sentence.

Yes, Davids is milking it during the twilight of his career.

But Crespo is a great player who never quite hit it off here, and Shevchenko is still in his prime, albeit struggling with a lack of crosses. Blame Chelsea for those.

There are plenty of outstanding foreign stars in the Premiership.

I hate the little twat, but in 2007 Cristiano Ronaldo is 100 times the player Beckham is.

Yes but if teh Sky money went tomorrow, how much longer do you think the current premiership teams could go on playing any of the supposed superstars

 

[Wozza]

It's all tied up until 2010 so I wouldn't worry about that for a while.

 

[DJ Leon]

Am a bit disappointed he didn't come back to the UK and fight for more caps, he could have done so and still gone to the US in a couple of seasons - he's not that old.

On the other hand £150m to move to LA? Not really surprising that he preferred that to life at Bolton is it?

 

[Simster]

Has he? He's looking after himself and his family.

I'm not surprised he turned his back on England to be honest. So would I if I was made an example of by a manager who doesn't seem to have a clue. Beckham wasn't the worst midfielder atthe world cup and still has a lot to offer England so why drop him to make a point? f*** that, I'd go and play for half a million a week instead of play for that blotchy twat in charge of England.

Neil Warnock got it right. Would you return to a nation you CARRIED for years - fully of nasty shìt hacks who have belittled his every move, and unpleasant little shits in the stands who spit on him and hurl insults regarding his wife because of that infamous "petulant kick". And yet he's always remained dignified through it.

He's got nothing to prove - he's won the domenstic/European treble with United and would have done more with England if he'd been managed properly - hell, even Stephane G'uivarch has a world cup winners medal.

The alternative is to be paid $1m a week for 5 years, and finally help promote a sport in the US - something that not even Pele could manage.

Tough call, that one. Good luck Becks, you're a legend.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

She recently admitted that she can't act for toffee, so I doubt that.

But she still insists she can sing? :thud:

 

[CHAPPERS]

A lot of people have cast an eye over David Beckham and concluded, from his obsessive interest in fashion and the vacuity of his public utterances, that he is not the sharpest knife in the box. Now he is to receive something in the region of a quarter of a billion dollars for spending the next five years in southern California. When he and his family get around to house-hunting for a mansion in the Hollywood hills and a Malibu beach property, the last galáctico will be having the last laugh.

How intelligent of Beckham to leave European football at the age of 32. The timing of his decision means that he will enter Major League Soccer at a time when he is still capable of giving competitive performances at the highest level. Philip Anschutz, the owner of Los Angeles Galaxy (and much else besides), can be confident he has secured the signature not just of a celebrity whose aura alone can sell a million replica shirts but of a player who will persuade a whole new audience to fall in love with the game itself.

After the unexpected setbacks of the last three and a half years, few would begrudge Beckham a decent break and a dignified final act to his football career. Thirteen winters ago he was a callow Manchester United reserve, a slender, smiling youth with a floppy soul-boy haircut, turning out alongside his fellow hopefuls Gary Neville and Paul Scholes on a mid-winter quagmire at Gigg Lane. Now he is about to become possibly the highest paid sportsman in the United States, where money is the measure of all things and his presence will bring football into the consciousness of millions who have hitherto resisted its appeal.

When he was told by Sir Alex Ferguson in the summer of 2003 that there was no longer a place for him at Old Trafford, he responded by making what promised to be a wonderful move to Real Madrid. It was hardly his fault that the Madrid club was entering a period of catastrophic instability which began with the decision to ditch Vicente del Bosque, an old-school coach who had proved capable of organising a squad of superstars into a winning unit. Once Del Bosque had departed, the egos went haywire.

Not Beckham's, however. Of all Real's galácticos, none worked harder to instill some sort of spirit into the squad. Again he could not be blamed when a succession of coaches mistakenly indulged his desire to become a midfield general in the manner of Billy Bremner - a delusion that had been glaringly obvious as long ago as the 1999 European Cup final, when Ferguson mystifyingly decided to start the match with Beckham and Nicky Butt in central midfield, and almost paid the price.

Beckham, a schoolboy 1500m champion, has always been a good athlete. But he has never been a sprinter, and he lacks the sort of anticipation that would enable him to make effective tackles. Instead his untidy attempts to win the ball in the centre of pitch too often ended up with the flourish of a yellow card. He has always been a specialist, a right winger whose crosses are delivered with such a degree of curl and dip that they can be hit from in front of a defender, relieving him of the need to beat his marker. And his freakish ability to bend a dead ball, which won the European Cup for United and took England through to the World Cup in 2002, will wow his new public.

His mistake was to assume that he could do more; his coaches' error was to believe that he needed to do more. In his proper role, Beckham was always a potential match-winner. It was when he tried to expand his scope that his wings began to droop.

When Peter Taylor offered him the England captaincy against Italy in 2000, and the incoming Sven-Goran Eriksson confirmed the appointment, his acceptance was prompted as much by pride and patriotism as by the calculation of what the honour would do for his commercial profile. He took the job seriously, turning himself into an unfailingly polite and passably eloquent front-man, but he turned out to be a poor leader, not harsh enough either on himself or on others. And it was Eriksson's willingness to indulge his lifestyle preferences that led to the whole WAG circus, which compounded England's poor showing in Germany and turned the squad into a laughing stock.

Despite all that, Beckham can legitimately feel that he has nothing left to prove as a footballer in Europe. No purpose would be served by spending a couple of seasons in a Newcastle United or West Ham United shirt. Since the Premiership saw the very best of him, particularly when he played a leading role in Manchester United's historic treble, it would have been foolish to attempt to present the same audience with an encore. And he is not a fool, as was demonstrated by yesterday's elegant statement, in which he made a gracious reference to Fabio Capello, the coach whose indifference has finally persuaded him that his time at the Bernabéu is over.

For this most Hollywood of footballers, Los Angeles is the logical place to end up. The weather is lovely, the light is gorgeous, the fans will adore him, the beach is a free-kick away, the shopping is terrific, he and Victoria already speak the language, and the kids can keep up their Spanish with the pool guy. Together they can sit of an evening, watching the sun sink into the Pacific and imagining the end titles rolling on the final reel of a spectacular career.