Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Martin Rogers: Moving Forward Without Beckham, Donovan



David Beckham’s desperation to leave the Los Angeles Galaxy seems to have no limitations, with reports in Italy stating that the England midfielder has sent his legal team to California to negotiate a release from his contract.

With a permanent move to AC Milan growing increasingly likely and Landon Donovan poised to join Bayern Munich full time, the need for the Galaxy to take stock is imperative.

1 comment:

Bobbie BS said...

Marty misses a crucial point in all of this- the DP rule gets rid of the salary cap debate because a DP's salary number against the cap is in the mid $400,000's regardless of the actual salary number. The Galaxians had cap problems because they were essentially granted a second DP to sign Beckham as they already had a salary exemption in place for Landycakes. One of their offseason headaches was that this exemption was due to expire and they were going to have to figure out how to either a) comply with league salary rules or b) weasel another "we're so fucking special" exemption from the league. With only one DP on the books they'll have an additional $400,000+ free for the rest of the roster, essentially alleviating the cash crunch they had over the past 2 seasons.

Regardless, if (when) they sign a replacement for Beckham it will be entirely driven by the marketing department. Schevchenko is in another league as far as star power, regardless of how well he plays. Your average teenage girl has no idea who he is, and that's all that matters in this case. As far as being a marketing icon, there's just nobody else that can come close. Ha ha.