Hold on to those Galaxy tickets but it looks like David Beckham is returning to the LA Galaxy.
Tim Leiweke, the chief executive of AEG, which owns the Los Angeles Galaxy, said in an interview with the LA Times that AC Milan has not met Major League Soccer’s Friday deadline to make a better offer for the English midfielder and that no late offer would be considered.
“He will be back here on March 9 and we don’t want to entertain any more conversations now,” Leiweke said. “It is a distraction to [Galaxy Coach] Bruce Arena, the team and the fans and we move on. That’s the last we’re going to talk about this.”
Asked what would happen if AC Milan made an offer over the weekend or next week, Leiweke said:
“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.”
Leiweke said AC Milan had not come close to offering what Beckham is worth.
“They’ve never been in the ballpark,” he said in terms of meeting AEG’s and the league’s asking price of more than $10 million. What they’ve tried to do is use David and use us. We’re not going to play that game any more. This has been extremely damaging and distracting for our team. I’ve been as courteous and as gracious as I possibly can out of respect for David, but now it’s time to move on. We need to get David excited about the team we’re building here and coming back.”
Here is the problem for the Galaxy. Beckham does not want to retutn to LA. In an interview with Beckham that appeared in Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport on Friday, it was evident that he wants to stay in Italy.
“I have nothing against the Galaxy,” he said. “Los Angeles has been a wonderful experience. But at Milan I have found great players who have been of great help to me. For the time being, things could not be going better.”
Do you think that Beckham is going to come back to MLS or will the Galaxy work out a deal with Milan?
