Top Stories

Beckham coming back to Galaxy after Milan fails to make “an acceptable offer”

David Beckham 5 (AP) 

David Beckham will NOT be staying with AC Milan after his loan move ends on March 9th.

The Los Angeles Galaxy issued a statement late on Friday night stating that AC Milan did not make an "acceptable offer" for Beckham, meaning he will be returning to the Galaxy next month rather than staying with the Italian club.

"Today's deadline imposed by Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber regarding a resolution of David Beckham's potential transfer to AC Milan has passed and we did not receive an acceptable offer for the player and we look forward to having him back with the club starting March 9," Galaxy head coach and general manager Bruce Arena said in a statement released by the club.

Admit it, you never thought that would be the outcome of this situation, did you?

Graham Jones of the Los Angeles Times offers this detailed report on the situation, with the following statement from AEG president Tim Lieweke about the possibility of Milan coming back with another offer:

'They'll come back. Sure they will. But we owe it to our fans [not to consider it]. They've been reading all these stories and we lose credibility by the day. That's not fair. We owe it to Bruce and we owe it to the rest of the team."

"We're a month away from our season."

What do you think of this news? Still don't buy it? Think a $20 million offer from Milan would change Don Garber's mind? Think this news makes it that much more likely that Landon Donovan stays with Bayern Munich?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Becks will leave in october from MLS for free? Really matt are you his agent? Do you have a copy of his contract in front of you… right there next to your lincoln logs and your blankie perhaps? And you looked into your crystal ball and saw that the league would be out of business in 5-7 years…

    Matt = Idiot

    Reply
  2. Everyone – this is pretty simple! Becks will leave in october from MLS for free! So AEG and MLS will get nothing, and just passed up on millions. If Becks comes back, he will be pissed off the whole time and probably get injured. He has been such a bust in this league – yes he sold some tickets, but this league is not for him. And I don’t blame Beckham, he has to play with young players that should not even be playing professional soccer. My estimate is that MLS is out of business is 5-7 years..

    Reply
  3. Let the Beckham “Farewell” tour begin!

    Hopefully the MLS will get 2-5 mil in the summer for him or he is gone on a free in Oct.

    Reply
  4. I can’t believe all the people saying MLS and Galaxy are making a bad move here. Beckham signed a contract. He makes the team and the league money. If someone else wants him they have to pay up, or else they don’t get him. If you sell every player who wants out, because he might stop trying, you are going screw over your team and eventually the league. Who cares if that is how it is done in Europe, its not how it should be done here. Besides, whats Beckham going to do? Sulk all year and tarnish his reputation? I see this move as more one that needs to be made to make sure the rest of the world takes MLS seriously in negotiations.

    Reply
  5. I personally thought he would be back and I am happy I am- I don’t think he deserves to leave unless he helps out his team first

    Reply
  6. I think MLS could be in for a very difficult season. The economic fall out for sports has not truly been felt yet, since the two playing right now (NBA and NHL) already had season tickets sold before the crisis kicked into gear. But I’m fairly certain baseball will see a significant loss (outside of NY/LA/BOS/CHI), and MLS could see a loss of ticket sales of 10-15%.

    That being said, will we also see a decline in Beckham’s appeal? Possibly. But nowhere near the drop off the rest of the league faces. So keeping Beckham for one more season to bolster ticket sales and ratings could have an even BIGGER impact than we think.

    Reply
  7. My opinion….HA!!!!! what a wanker!!! Everyone is saying it even the announcers for the spain game they don’t want him in 2010 this idea is all him and I think fabio feels the pressure to either keep him or leave him. This is going to be interesting fasten your seat belt!!

    Reply
  8. For everyone who believes MLS is turning down a big payday, remember that AEG was going to evaluate if they were better off keeping him or selling him — from a financial perspective!

    He’s worth more in an LA jersey and on American soccer fields than what Milan was offering. It couldn’t be any more obvious.

    Reply
  9. Compare Chicago’s situation with Conde, who wanted to play for NY. Conde played like a BEAST for the Fire, so if Becks stays, will he make less effort than Conde did? Becks will play as well as he can if he is here, but the Fire has more depth than the Galaxy. Since that limits what DB can really do, Milan shoulda showed MLS the money.

    Reply
  10. Has anyone seen the verbage in Beckham’s opt out clause? For all we know it wasn’t as big a leveraging chip as it seems. Perhaps in order to opt out there’s a price that has to be paid. So the league is prepared to make whatever they can during the season and then collect when Beckham opts out.

    Reply
  11. This is only mildly surprising.(I thought it would end up with a season long loan) I mean if you have been awake for the last 3 years you have noticed that Serie A clubs (Milan included) are considerably more poor than they used to be and the current economic woes in the EU are merely exacerbating it.

    Look around Serie A and you see teams that are either VERY old (Milan) or VERY young. Very little in between because players at both ends are cheap. Milan hoped they could ‘scare’ MLS into a cheap sale for a player who could generate revenue doing nothing and it failed.

    Beckham’s big mistake was falling for the pillow talk. His saying he wanted to leave is NOT going to play well at all. In Europe it’s ‘acceptable’ for a player to say those sorts of things and return to the team, here it just isn’t until you REALLY prove yourself. He is going to have to have the biggest year of his career if he hopes to win back any fans and keep his name a relevant property in America.

    Reply
  12. The timing of the deadline was critical to the Galaxy’s negotiating position. Milan are playing Inter this weekend, and if they lose, chances are they’re out of the Scudetto race and it won’t matter if they have Beckham. If they win, they’ll definitely want to keep Beckham for the title push. But the Galaxy set the deadline before this pivotal game knowing Milan’s decision would largely rest on what happens this weekend.

    That said, the Galaxy have sternly given themselves firm control, and will now force Milan to either come with a bigger offer (than the initially expected compromise offer) so that they will be willing to listen (though they always would’ve listened anyway).

    Reply
  13. O yea give st. louis a team so i can enjoy when these “fancy lads” come to my hometown and i can treat them like barry bonds or a-rod.

    Reply
  14. Let Beckham go! Bring in an American. Bring in someone that we can get behind as OUR soccer player. Don’t need those foreign imports

    Reply
  15. I’m not too surprised.

    LA/MLS have a lot to lose financially by letting him go a year early.

    Milan don’t have much to gain financially by getting him now instead of next winter. All the people planning to buy Milan Beckham jerseys will still pick them up next year. Attendance won’t change for milan.

    Reply
  16. I was absolutely opposed to the MLS’s sudden imposed timeline, I thought it was hypocritical; HOWEVER, it’s encouraging to see the MLS show a little backbone and not be bullied into a bad decision by Beckham or Milan, who were clearly both attempting to put pressure on the MLS through the press to sell at an unreasonable price

    Reply
  17. Come on folks. Seriously, this is Hollywood, coupled with Beckham, are you kidding me? This is going down to the first week of March.

    Story will unfold like this. Beckham helps Milan win string of matches putting them top of the Serie A, AC Milan cannot refuse but to GO BIG and buy buy buy at 15-20M.

    Reply
  18. Tired of the drama. Can we focus on the soccer? I wish Beckham woudl leave it is just such a distraction. The Galaxy would do better without him, and probably make the playoffs.

    Reply

Leave a Comment