There’s a Price for Beckham
Manchester United, which has consistently denied that midfielder David Beckham would be sold, admitted Sunday that if the right financial offer came along England’s captain might well be sent packing.
Peter Kenyon, United’s chief executive, told BBC Radio 5 that if another team offers $56 million or more for Beckham, the club would consider selling its most prized asset.
“I think we have to look at those kind of offers, it would be remiss not to,” Kenyon said, while maintaining that Beckham, who is in the first year of a new three-year contract, will be playing for the English champions next season.
“The success of Manchester United is about the team [and] David Beckham is an essential part of our team,” Kenyon said. “But ultimately players retire, there is a life span and there will reach a time when we have to replace him.”
Few teams could afford Beckham, but his name has been linked with Real Madrid and Inter Milan during the last few rumor-filled months.
English Finale
The English Premier League season came to a dramatic close Sunday with Chelsea edging Liverpool, 2-1, to claim the fourth and final place in next season’s European Champions League and Bolton Wanderers avoiding relegation at the expense of West Ham United.
Sami Hyypia gave Liverpool the early lead at Stamford Bridge in a game it had to win, but Chelsea tied it on a Marcel Desailly goal and then won it to the delight of the home crowd when Jesper Gronkjaer scored to put the Blues into the Champions League for the first time since 1999.
West Ham managed a 2-2 tie on the road at Birmingham, but Bolton’s 2-1 victory at home over Middlesbrough on goals by Per Frandsen and Jay-Jay Okocha consigned the London club to first division soccer next season.
Quick Passes
Juventus of Turin clinched its second Italian championship in a row and its 27th overall on Saturday.... Belgium’s soccer federation has kicked Lommel out of the first division and annulled all of its results this season because the bankrupt club failed to pay more than $52,000 it owed the federation.... Portuguese international striker Pedro Pauleta of Bordeaux was named the best player in the French league for the second year in a row.... Argentine forward Gabriel Batistuta, 34, told Argentina’s radio Mitre network that he will leave Inter Milan and join an unidentified English Premier League team.
