David Beckham was last night still trying to engineer a way out of his LA Galaxy contract after the club turned down a £6.75 million ($10 million) bid from AC Milan. Galaxy’s owners have warned Milan that the ball is in their court – and that the Italians must raise their offer quickly if they want to sign the player.
Tim Leiweke, chief executive of the company that owns the Galaxy, told the Los Angeles Times on Friday he would not consider an extended loan of the 33-year-old England international to Milan, but he was willing to negotiate a purchase deal.
“Clearly, if David’s in a position where he wants to finish the season in Milan, and Milan in turn compensates the Galaxy so that we can suffer no damages to our fans or to our team, then we’ll take a look at it.”
Tim Leiweke did admit though that the Galaxy had received a bid from Milan for Beckham: ‘We just received an offer. It was rejected.’
Beckham, 33, who was named in the England squad last night, is on loan with the Italian Serie A club as he tries to prove his fitness during the MLS off-season and keep himself in the thoughts of national team manager Fabio Capello.
Michael Roth, spokesman for AEG, said:
“It is up to AC Milan as to when there will be any new talks. But both parties know that we are not prepared to wait until March 8 or 9 to resolve this. We need to do that before those dates, although we are not prepared to make public the deadline.”
Italian sources claimed last night that Milan had opened with an offer of just £2 million ($3 million) for Beckham – but Galaxy are looking for closer to £13 million ($19 million). AC Milan vice president Adriano Galliani told Sky Italia on Saturday that the two sides are far apart on how much it will cost to buy out Beckham’s contract, but said he’s willing to parley. Neither Galliani nor Leiwecke would talk numbers.
“There’s a long distance between what we’ve offered and what they want,” Galliani said. “Therefore we need to talk. For now we are a long way off, but there is a still a month to go.”
What do you think is a good price for the Galaxy to get for Beckham?
