# What will happen if Beckham refuses to return to Galaxy? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 24, 2009, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172 "2009-02-24T06:04:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RetroVertigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@RetroVertigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RetroVertigo)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/21 "2009-02-26T22:08:00Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > And a possible World Cup medal owner. I’d say England’s chances of winning are just slightly ahead that of the U.S. The “Three Lions” just don’t have the attacking/playmaking flanker and midfirlder that is required to compete with the top teams. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/22 "2009-02-26T22:16:44Z")
> [@RetroVertigo](#): > > I’d say England’s chances of winning are just slightly ahead that of the U.S. The “Three Lions” just don’t have the attacking/playmaking flanker and midfirlder that is required to compete with the top teams. Flanker? This isn’t a rugby thread, you know. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/23 "2009-02-27T14:16:56Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Flanker? > > This isn’t a rugby thread, you know. The word that comes to my mind starts with a “W”… aha! yes, “Winger’s” the one I’m after.. ---
**Author:** ![RetroVertigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@RetroVertigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RetroVertigo)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/24 "2009-02-27T22:41:03Z")
Sorry bout that. My high school team used flanker as the term and it stuck. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/25 "2009-02-28T01:10:13Z")
> [@RetroVertigo](#): > > Sorry bout that. My high school team used flanker as the term and it stuck. You’re still wrong! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/26 "2009-02-28T01:39:33Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > 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. I’m pretty sure that the Galaxy owns his contract. Designated players (of which Beckham is one) follow different rules than the rest of the players in MLS. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/27 "2009-02-28T06:10:55Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > I’m pretty sure that the Galaxy owns his contract. Designated players (of which Beckham is one) follow different rules than the rest of the players in MLS. I believe you will find that there are no franchises in MLS. Each of the teams is a unit of the entity MLS. They are managed by their primary MLS “owners” but the entity which owns the contracts is MLS. This was done in a deliberate attempt to circumvent US anti-trust laws, and avoid player salary wars. So all players, regardless of team and status are employees of MLS. The financial accounting simply varies for the special ones like Becks. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/28 "2009-02-28T06:19:03Z")
While we’re on the subject of MLS… ye gods, are those team names goofy. DC _United_. _Real_ Salt Lake. Houston _Dynamo_. I mean, really. They might as well just have named a team Indianapolis Wednesday or Shakhtar Atlanta. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/29 "2009-02-28T14:28:31Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > While we’re on the subject of MLS… ye gods, are those team names goofy. > > DC _United_. _Real_ Salt Lake. Houston _Dynamo_. I mean, really. They might as well just have named a team Indianapolis Wednesday or Shakhtar Atlanta. LA County and San Francisco Athletic would work tho’. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/30 "2009-02-28T15:12:37Z")
Real Salt Lake is the one that cracks me up. Lot of Spanish royalty in Utah, is there? “LA Galaxy” I quite like, though. Space-y. Like, whoa, man - they’re stars, but we’re all _made_ from stars too, right? Deep. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/31 "2009-02-28T17:31:42Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > While we’re on the subject of MLS… ye gods, are those team names goofy. > > DC _United_. _Real_ Salt Lake. Houston _Dynamo_. I mean, really. They might as well just have named a team Indianapolis Wednesday or Shakhtar Atlanta. Well, when the league started, back in the mid '90s, the original teams all had pretty goofy names, and if you go back and look at the uniforms of the time, pretty ugly uniforms as well (there were, as I recall, two main uniform patterns the league bought, one used by three teams, the other by six, with only the colors changed from team to team). I mean, really: Chicago Fire? Columbus Crew?? :rolleyes: The one exception was the team in the nation’s capital. D. C. United not only sounded like a soccer team, it looked like one. It had both a home and an away strip that might well have been found on a team from anywhere in Europe. Not surprisingly, that team also was much more professional soccer-like in other ways, and it showed on the field. They were the undisputedly best team of the first few years. And the fans ate it up. So as the years passed, MLS began to think that it should try to emulate that sort of approach. Sadly, somewhere between the very good thought “Let’s do more of what they did!” and the execution, the same, relatively unsophisticated minds that had engineered the stupidity of a name like the Kansas City Wiz and the Dallas Burn (we loved Wiz - Burn games!) managed to screw up the execution of imposing a sense of soccerdom on our league. So you have Real Salt Lake. Why? Because someone looked around Europe and noticed that “Real” was used in certain successful Spanish and Hispanic clubs. But they had no idea why it’s used, nor did they appear to care. Same with Dynamo. Fortunately, there have been some better decisions that have gone along with the recent moves. Toronto FC and Seattle Sounders FC are examples. And I maintain it was positively brilliant to have Chivas USA created (you should have seen the crowd that showed up in 1997 IIRC when the owners of the now-defunct California Jaguars put on an exhibition with the _developmental_ squad from Club Deportivo Guadalajara, which was played in a high school stadium in the tiny town of Gonzales, California). ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/32 "2009-02-28T18:45:52Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > While we’re on the subject of MLS… ye gods, are those team names goofy. > > DC _United_. _Real_ Salt Lake. Houston _Dynamo_. I mean, really. They might as well just have named a team Indianapolis Wednesday or Shakhtar Atlanta. I don’t know, I think a lot of team names are are pretty stupid. Sheffield Wednesday, Tottenham Hotspur, Racing Santander? While I think MLS’s idea of copying European team names is pretty dumb, all that matters in the end is that is that the fans like it. Personally, I think Seattle Sounders is a dumb-ass name, but suggest that to one of their fans and they will froth at the mouth like a rabid dog. Real Salt Lake, as dumb as it sounds, at least makes sense from the perspective that they are partners with Madrid. By the way, I caught the A-League final last night. Queensland Roar and Perth Glory are as bad as anything MLS has thought of. ---
**Author:** ![Piker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@Piker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Piker)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/33 "2009-03-01T23:08:26Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > While we’re on the subject of MLS… ye gods, are those team names goofy. > > DC _United_. _Real_ Salt Lake. Houston _Dynamo_. I mean, really. They might as well just have named a team Indianapolis Wednesday or Shakhtar Atlanta. Poor MLS. Ten years ago, when the teams were called San Jose Clash, Dallas Burn, and MetroStars, it was mercilessly mocked in many quarters for not having “proper” football names. Now, the pendulum has swung completely towards names that would be instantly familiar to current soccer fans, and the league is mocked for being poseurs. It’ll never win. (P.S. Two weeks until the 'Quakes home opener. This is our year!?) -Piker ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/34 "2009-03-01T23:40:03Z")
I just love the fact that Houston, of all places, is named after a Soviet national [sporting program](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_(sports_society)). Reds in Texas! ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/35 "2009-03-02T15:48:25Z")
> [@Dead\_Badger](#): > > I just love the fact that Houston, of all places, is named after a Soviet national [sporting program](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_(sports_society)). Reds in Texas! If I recall, the fans voted to name the team Houston 1836, the year of Texas independence from Mexico, but the owners nixed it for fear of alienating potential Mexican-American fans. Considering the tons of Hispanic fans that the team has, it was probably a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/36 "2009-03-02T16:03:41Z")
> [@MichaelQReilly](#): > > I don’t know, I think a lot of team names are are pretty stupid. Sheffield Wednesday, Tottenham Hotspur, Racing Santander? Sure, they’re stupid, but they’re organic. They didn’t come about just because the owner said, “hey, that would be cool!” Tottenham Hotspur is named for Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur from Shakespeare’s Henry something-or-other) whose family owned most of the area where the team was founded. Sheffield Wednesday is so named because the cricket club which eventually gave rise to the football team only played on Wednesdays. Racing Santander is properly Racing Club de Santander- named for the club which sponsored the original football team. > [@Piker](#): > > Poor MLS. Ten years ago, when the teams were called San Jose Clash, Dallas Burn, and MetroStars, it was mercilessly mocked in many quarters for not having “proper” football names. Now, the pendulum has swung completely towards names that would be instantly familiar to current soccer fans, and the league is mocked for being poseurs. It’ll never win. That’s because they didn’t pick proper football names. You can’t just call a team United because other teams are called United. The other teams are called United because they were formed by combining two or more other teams. If you want a “proper football name”, you just name your team after the city it plays in, and let the nickname come. Obviously, adding FC is no big deal. Anything more than that is just cheesy. ---
**Author:** ![Piker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@Piker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Piker)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/37 "2009-03-02T16:44:02Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > That’s because they didn’t pick proper football names. You can’t just call a team United because other teams are called United. The other teams are called United because they were formed by combining two or more other teams. Wow, what a bad example to pick. I wonder how the most famous United club in the world came about that name? > [@](#): > > Just before having to be shut down for good, the club received a sizeable investment from J. H. Davies, the managing director of Manchester Breweries. Legend goes that Harry Stafford, the club captain, was showing off his prized St. Bernard dog at a club fund-raiser, when Davies approached him to buy the dog. Stafford declined, but was able to persuade Davies to invest in the club and become club chairman. It was decided at one of the early board meetings that the club required a change of name to reflect the fresh start they had been afforded. Manchester Central and Manchester Celtic were among the names suggested, before Louis Rocca, a young immigrant from Italy, said “Gentlemen, why don’t we call ourselves Manchester United?” The name stuck, and Manchester United officially came into existence on 26 April 1902. From wikipedia (I know, I know . . . ). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/38 "2009-03-02T16:58:03Z")
> [@Piker](#): > > Wow, what a bad example to pick. I wonder how the most famous United club in the world came about that name? You can’t pick Man U as an example of anything. They’re like the Yankees- they suck and their fans are idiots. It pisses me off no end that as a Buccaneers fan I have to root for a team owned by the people who also own Man U. ---
**Author:** ![WormTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbe5ce/32.png) [@WormTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WormTheRed)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/39 "2009-03-02T17:23:14Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You can’t pick Man U as an example of anything. They’re like the Yankees- they suck and their fans are idiots. > > It pisses me off no end that as a Buccaneers fan I have to root for a team owned by the people who also own Man U. I can’t vouch for myself being an idiot, but in what world do they suck? But about Houston Dynamo. Shouldn’t it be Dynamo Houston if they want to copy/paste cool names? I kinda figured they were named after an electric generator 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Piker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@Piker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Piker)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172/40 "2009-03-02T17:23:50Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You can’t pick Man U as an example of anything. They’re like the Yankees- they suck and their fans are idiots. > > It pisses me off no end that as a Buccaneers fan I have to root for a team owned by the people who also own Man U. What a conveniently easy way ignore an example that counters your argument. A quick stroll through the “United” page on wikipedia has more evidence that you’re wrong, unless you find another reason to ignore it. British clubs called “United” not because of a merger, but because it sounds cool: Leeds United West Ham United Hartlepool United Colchester United Peterborough United Carlisle United Sheffield United (maybe, depends on the history of the cricket club it was named after, which a quick google search is of no help) Dundee United Airdrie United Non-British Clubs: Tampere United (Finland) D.C. United (United States) Adelaide United (Australia) The idea that DC United isn’t authentic because it wasn’t formed after a merger, unlike “proper football clubs”, is pure, unadulterated eurosnobbery. -Piker [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-happen-if-beckham-refuses-to-return-to-galaxy/487172.md?page=3)