When I check on the FIFA websitefor the latest qualifiers results, there is daily, a new article on the Beckham situation. It turns out that Beckham, who has been loaned to Milan until early March does not want to come back to LA. The reasons for this may involve him wanting to keep in shape so that England can consider him playing for them in next year’s World Cup (assuming that they don’t fall to Croatia in qualifying again) but I believe the real reason is that he’s bored of this latest gimmick and just wants to leave for someplace new.
Problem is, he signed a five year contract with an escape clause after the 2009 season. I find the comments from some folks at the FIFA.com website comical, if not insulting, people who think that since the USA “sucks” at soccer, Beckham should therefore play in Milan. Never mind the contract. Or that since this is “real” football and not the American kind, Beckham should honor his wishes and stay at Milan. Never mind the contract. Or that since the “U$A” is only about money, he should stay at Milan. Never mind the contract.
Is a signed contract something that is honored only in the United States? I know that the president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, claimed that Europe’s other prima donna, Cristiano Ronaldo, being held to his multi-million dollar contract by (I think) Manchester United, was effectively a “modern day slave!”
Galliani is the vice president of the Milan team. It seems to me that he misses the point. This isn’t about commercial aspects or what people in the “States” look at or whether or not he has experience with the value of the players. The point is that Beckham is under contract to the Galaxy, which means he belongs to Galaxy. Period. End of case.
I’d like to know, since this is an international dispute between an American club and an Italian club, where would it end up if Beckham decides to stay at Milan, even though Galaxy don’t feel they’ve been justly compensated by Milan? I’m sure that Beckham would not do this but what would be the consequences, if it happened? I don’t hold any faith in the people at FIFA doing the just thing, considering the above consideration from Mr. Sepp Blatter.
It’s just horse-trading. Maybe it’s unfamiliar in an American sporting context with your heavily regulated player markets, but it’s par for the course over here. It’s nothing to do with a lack of respect for contracts, it’s all about jockeying for position.
Contracts aren’t immutable things - everything has its price, and Galliani is just laying out his stance. A one-year contract on an end-of-career player isn’t worth a great deal, and MLS will know this as well as Galliani. In Beckham’s case it’s a bit more complicated because his perceived value is not just his footballing worth, but his marketability - marketability that may have been compromised in the US by the loan saga. Regardless, MLS may choose to get something for him now, rather than nothing in November; it all depends what value they think he represents in the meantime.
As regards what would happen if the contract is simply broken, I would’ve thought appleciders is correct; that said, though, I don’t think there’s a chance of this coming to pass. Beckham will either be sold or return to the Galaxy.
Anyway, here’s a quick guide to transfer season quotes, for those not used to the doublespeak:
“X is not for sale” = “Agents come to the back door, please.”
“I have no plans to sell X” = “He’s gift-wrapped and sitting on the doorstep.”
“We are not interested in X” = “We’re desperate for him and hope no-one else outbids us.”
“X is still a Y player and I don’t see that changing” = “I hate the bastard’s face and will see him rot in the reserves.”
Anything uttered by Sepp Blatter = “I am a wobbly-faced idiot with less common sense than the average ham.”
I’m sure other football fans have favourites of their own.
If AC Milan and MLS can’t come to terms (remember, he really works for Major League Soccer, not the LA Galaxy), then under FIFA’s rules, any club that attempted to play him anyway would be subject to bans from organized competitions. This sort of rule extends via UEFA and the national federations all the way down the hierarchy. So Milan are not going to attempt to play him without having reached agreement with MLS on a transfer fee.
But let us be blunt. This is NOT about the contract between Becks and MLS. It’s about how much MLS thinks it can get for the rights to have him play for AC Milan. If a transfer fee can be agreed, MLS would be more than happy to release him from the remainder of his contract. Unlike the United States, which did away with ownership rights by and large, in the soccer world your rights to play for a team still have a value, and the main issue in the movement of players from one club to another is the negotiation of such transfer fees. Witness the absurd effort to sign Kaka earlier this winter, for the ridiculous price of some $150,000,000 plus!
Beckham can buy out the contract at the end of the season. At that point, he would be free to sign with any club, and the club would not have to negotiate a transfer fee. The Galaxy (read: MLS) would not get any money for owning his rights at that point. So what MLS and AC Milan are haggling over is simply this: how much should Milan pay to have Beckham available between now and October? Obviously MLS thinks they can shake down Milan for more than Milan is willing to pay. We shall see if this effort at brinksmanship works for MLS.
More worrisome is the following scenario: no transfer fee is negotiated, and Beckham sits in Milan and refuses to return and play for the Galaxy, intending to simply wait and buy out the remainder of the contract at the end of the season, after holding out. Then things get ugly, and MLS tries to enforce other provisions of the contract, etc. The result could be a complete restructuring of the issue of player rights on a world-wide basis, with the clubs being the losers.
If you can’t understand why Beckham would be so eager to play for England in the next World Cup, then you don’t deserve to call yourselves football fans.
That goes to all LA Galaxy’s fans especially. As far as I’m aware, their club is not in contention for any major honours( like you even have any in the USA yet.) and therefore they could easily allow him to be loaned out to a club where he could maintain the level of quality he needs to play for his country on merit.
If he is still good enough to play in a world cup event, he’ll certainly be still good enough to give Galaxy his all afterwards, and the club would then have the kudos of having one of the most esteemed footballers of all time on their side.
While I understand your frustration, and share it, a signed contract is nothing more than another point of negotiation. And it doesn’t matter where in the world you are. It’s kind of like “the law.” I’ve had a lot of experience with “the law” over the past year and have come to realise that nobody follows it, not even rock-solid, upstanding institutions. It’s just there to provide a starting point for dispute resolution when a dispute finally arises.
No, he hasn’t. He played just the other week, in fact, albeit not for very long.
It’s not that simple. To judge form and fitness, it’s regarded as essential that the coach be able to watch him play in matches of a certain quality; quality that MLS really doesn’t match up to. Beckham isn’t such a crucial player to England any more that he can get away with playing in an inferior league; he needs far more visibility (in a European context) than the MLS will afford him. Scoring goals for Milan and garnering praise from teammates of Kaka and Ronaldinho’s quality is precisely the sort of fillip that he needs to remain in national squad contention. He simply won’t get that in the States. If he remains at the Galaxy his England days are over, end of.
And while this may not directly be MLS’s problem, it’s a fact of life that unhappy players don’t play their best, and that he’s only got a year left before he can get out anyway. If he’s worth more to MLS for that year than Milan are offering, then they won’t sell him, and he’ll come back to MLS. The smart money is on a deal being done though, because when a player really wants to go, it almost always happens. The only complicating factor, like I say, is that Beckham’s value is not just what he does on the pitch.
MLS has a small roster size and salary cap and Beckham’s salary eats into a much larger chunk of that cap than all but a few other MLS players, meaning the Galaxy has a much smaller amount left to put to use for other players (particularly as they also have Landon Donovan on the books). Going out on loan does not remove Beckham’s salary from the Galaxy’s cap or his name from the roster, meaning not only are they paying the most money to a player who’s not playing for them, but they cannot replace him and all they have left is scrubs who would barely make the reserve team for the average Championship side.
I think that a lot of Europeans’ (and remember I’m a Brit living in America) only experience with MLS is Beckham’s 65 yard empty-net goal from last season (which, by the way, was deservedly beaten for goal of the week by a 35 yard screamer from Tam McManus) and just don’t understand the problems faced by this new league in a country where it is a minority sport. Much as I hate the circus surrounding him, Beckham, along with Cuauhtemoc Blanco and to a lesser extent Guillermo Barros Schelotto, is very important to the league as a whole in terms of marketing to the masses. He brings people to the games that otherwise probably wouldn’t have gone and he sells the merchandise. It is this, more than his play, that means that Milan cannot just waltz in a with a paltry offer and expect to pry him away. They are not just taking a player, they are also taking away a marketing tool and that is why MLS requires a greater compensation than Milan is offering. It’s not like Beckham didn’t know he would be used this way when he signed for the Galaxy - in fact he welcomed it, stating he would be “an ambassador for soccer in the United States”.
At the end of the day, Beckham has a contract with LA Galaxy/MLS and it is not either of those entities problem that he does not want to honour it. If Beckham wants to play elsewhere, then that club needs to come up with an amount of money that covers everything Beckham represents to his current owners. If not, they’ll just have to wait until 2009 and Beckham will just have to suck it up like everyone else held to a contract.
Well, frankly, it’s not quite that simple. MLS may well be overstating the value of Beckham in an attempt to squeeze extra from the Rossinieri. But if they misplay their hand here, they will get bupkis from Beckham’s presence, because he’ll just go home and not show up, or show up and be a less-than-enthusiastic “ambassador,” and at the end of the season, they won’t be able to get a transfer fee for him.
Frankly, MLS needs to stop trying to advertise on the backs of one or two big names. Yeah, temporarily it draws in fans, but like Pele before him (NASL, anyone?), it only works for a little, and has no lasting benefit. And it tends to divert attention from true efforts at increasing interest and attendance in the league.
There is a very good chance that Donovan will stay with Bayern Munich, making Galaxy quite possibly the worst team in the league. Beckham needs to be on a great team (relatively speaking) to be of value as a marketing tool. This whole thing is looking like a giant mistake for Galaxy and MLS.
I have to disagree somewhat with this assessment. The league is growing and it is growing through the on-field exploits of a few expensive foreign players, such as Schelotto’s amazing form at Columbus and Blanco’s play at Chicago, as well as home-grown talent such as Donovan, Kenny Cooper and Brian Ching. But, there are so many current fans, not just of the Galaxy, who wouldn’t even be aware of MLS’ existance without the Beckham Circus (and Blanco too, for Mexican-Americans). MLS can only work with the tools it’s got and while it needs to make sure it relies on the quality of play to keep fans coming to games, they need to be using every trick in the book to get them to come in the first place. I myself have converted people who thought they hated soccer into rabid fans just through the promise of seeing David Beckham (who incidentally, they now all hate).
They are already the worst team in the league, even with Beckham and Donovan. Without them they’ll be lucky to win a game. The problem lies in the fact that Alexei Lalas and Ruud Gullitt in particular concentrated far too much on producing “sexy attacking football” and then completely neglected the defense. It doesn’t matter how many times Beckham finds the heads of Donovan and Buddle, in this league if your defense is leakier than a seive, you’re in big trouble. The last 3 winning teams (Houston twice and Columbus) have been built on the foundation of a rock solid defense with a goal-scoring playmaker (DeRosario and Schelotto) feeding decent enough but fairly cheap forwards. The Galaxy only managed half of that combination and paid the price for it.
Good point. I just want to clarify that I didn’t mean to imply that I think the US is the only place where contracts and laws mean anything. There are some interesting points here that I didn’t know about, where this case is apparently not so unusual, although certainly so from a strictly American sports perspective where there is only one league involved in the contracts and negotiations. Even so, I think the Galaxy (or MLS) should stick to their guns and not cave in to Milan’s offers.
OK, I’m going to hate you for making me defend the Galaxy, my club’s arch-rival, but here we go. If you can’t understand why Galaxy fans would want Beckham to abide by his contractual obligations and play in Los Angeles this year, then you don’t deserve to call yourself an adult.
Douchebag much? My glee at the Galaxy’s internal problems notwithstanding, we have trophies in the United States that soccer fans here take very seriously, and the club will be competing for them just like every other team in the league.
He’s still English right? Are the Italians auctioning off their medals on eBay?
I respect your decision to defend Galaxy. I too am adult enough to support Man City and other North West clubs, as long as they aren’t playing Man U.
I said “major honours”. ie. ones that are recognised beyond your continent. Every Galaxy player would love to be in Beckham’s situation and have the possibility to play in a World Cup, and I don’t believe a single one of them would do differently to him if given the same circumstances. As has already been mentioned, insisting a player play without any consideration for the individual’s situation, is not conducive to getting the best performance out of said player.
Hey, just watch it! We’re well overdue a bit of goldware, and England always expects!
And hope springs eternal.
