MLS Against Becks? Or simply Pandering to fans?
By: Dave | July 29th, 2009Watching the MLS Allstar pre-game, I found it amazing that the analysts, paid by MLS I assume, are speculating about why Beckham got into the altercation with the Galaxy fan last week.
Rob Stone starts it off asking John Harkes “whats gotten into Beckham that he is showing such thin skin?”, and Harkes goes on to say that Beckham started off on a bad foot by wanting to stay at AC Milan and shouldn’t be surprised at the negative reception from some L.A. fans. Then he starts talking about David “underestimating the passion of the fans in this country.”
He’s joined in this line of thought by Alexei Lalas who goes on about how Beckham should concentrate on the play on the field and not the fans, and then reiterates the “passion” of Galaxy fans.
Julie Foudy then says the big one, “it makes me wonder, is this some sort of exit strategy?”
Perhaps this is some kind of MLS strategy of exiting Beckham while saving face, and big upping the fans for their stubbornness and lack of understanding of football norms all at the same time. The way all the announcers are ganging up on him, all with the same thoughts and ideas, is reminiscent of the way political news organizations attack someone under the false pretense of “news” or “analysis” *(fox news). I’m not particularly fond of Beckham, but I don’t like how they are doing him in this pregame. It will be interesting to see how long Becks lasts in the MLS, right now it looks like neither party is happy, and both may be looking for a way out.
UPDATE:
MLS Commissioner Don Garber was interviewed about Beckham at halftime and was much more level headed (as expected), defending him, saying he’s building the league and trying to bring his team to the championship. He also said that he has heard from Beckham that he wants to go back to Milan and play for England and also that he wants to play the rest of his career in MLS. Well, which one is it? I’m skeptical of the latter, but i’m glad to hear Beckham get a fair shake.
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Fox is definitely to blame for that, but so is nearly every media outlet, particularly CBS, ABC, and MSNBC.
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United States
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ahh, sorry to betray my politics, but the point wasn’t to blame any one media source, but to draw a connection between the kind of pointed political attack you see from strategists on the news, and what i percieved to be a pointed attack on David Beckham from MLS’ own analysts.
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i feel ya, dave. i was just sayin
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Why is it ok For American Players to be passionate about playing for their Country but not ok For David Beckham to have the same passion for his. By the way I am not bias as I follow the M L S games every week & enjoy doing so.I cannot understand how these so called fans ,are called fans when they dont shout about the way a player is playing but call out abusive remarks & attacks on a players wife. Thats totally out of order & something should be done to make these so called fans realise that it is not going to be tolerated. I will still watch M L S playing.
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Ooh, I’m detecting the beginnings of an anti-anti-Beckham backlash!
M Brooks, as a recovering Galaxy fan, I can tell you that this has NOTHING to do with wanting to play for country. The issues are:
1) Beckham came in and took a salary 100 time the average to be an “ambassador” to football. That kind of money requires commitment.
2) He strongarmed the captain’s band off of Landon Donovan, then showed no leadership on or off the field. (He never once held a players meeting, even in the worst of the losing streaks.)
3) His management company, 19 Entertainment (Simon Fuller’s company, which also runs American Idol) did a backdoor takeover of the Galaxy at the end of the 2007 season. His best friend Terry Byrne got a secret consulting contract. They were the ones who brought in Ruud Gullit, who defines the word “Disaster.” Beckham has never acknowledged any of this.
4) When AEG realized what how badly this had turned out, they fired Gullit and Byrne. Beckham then started phoning it in for the Galaxy, not showing up at anything he wasn’t required to show up at, and planning his escape to Milan
5) He never let anybody at the Galaxy know about the Milan loan until it was a done deal.
6) He apparently paid several million of his own money to stay in Milan, then very publicly said he didn’t want to come back. So he did come back…why?
7) He’s lied repeatedly over everything that happened, (in provable ways) and when he’s challenged he gets angry.
8 ) Now he’s losing it with the fans who want to hold him accountable for his behavior and blaming THEM for being disrespectful.
That said, I was kind of shocked at the booth crew at the All Star game. I wonder if they got a talking to?
Thing is, though, most people who’ve followed this story closely think he had this coming. Read “The Beckham Experiment” and you might change your opinion. My personal opinion is that this kind of lack of commitment is bad for MLS and he deserves everything thrown his way. Compare his attitude to Freddie Ljungberg’s. Night and day when it comes to wanting to help the league. Yet Beckham is paid five times more, not even counting merchandising.
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DB is a money maker. They should be the best of friends.
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Thanks everyone for your comments.
Laurie, its great to hear your perspective. I really didn’t know too much about Becks’ conspiring to destroy the MLS. I mean, i think it’s pretty clear, Beckham is a total wanker. Only thing though, he is an MLS employee, and when your employees misbehave, you can fire them. If the dirt he has done is easily provable, and he continues to not hold up his end of the bargain, the MLS has a responsibility to throw him out, even if its an embarrasment.
The fans? Well fans will be fans and I don’t care too much what they do or say, as long as it isn’t violent. If he’s really done all that stuff, I’d be pretty pissed to.
Posted from
United States
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