Beckham retires...

I would just *love* to get a million bucks a week to 'retire' to Los Angeles to play footie with a second-rate team. I'd leave the stick-insect wife in Madrid, however...

That's an insult to stick insects, which are a far more interesting and aesthetically pleasing species.

This is true, AB. I had some as pets. Can't say I'd like a Victoria for a pet, ever.

Who the fuck is Beckham and who gives a shit? It's soccer! Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

Football is on the rise in the USA, with kids being taught the game all across the nation. At the moment it doesn't count for much in a country absorbed with baseball and that funny carnival game they call NFL football, BUT mark my words, when the current generation of kids mature it will be gaining in popularity. Beckham has a football academy in LA, and having been there, (LA, not the academy) several times in the last few years, I can see why a person with several million pounds in the bank would want to move there. He won't be living in Anaheim or the close localities but there's some gorgeous areas in the canyons and up around Malibu.

Looks like easy money to me. I played soccer in high school but got kicked out because I thought it was dodge-ball. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

$1,000,000 per WEEK. Yep, sure is easy money. I'm sure he must be worth every nickel.

And they say Beckham is stupid.

He might be; his accountants sure aren't.

RD: "Who the fuck is Beckham and who gives a shit? It's soccer!" If you truly do not know, RD, then I expect your life is better for that... :-/ pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

Actually, I know very well who he is. He and his wife are considered more of as international celebrities associated with soccer. Since the US isn't really interested in Soccer, he'll be out of work in a year or two. They've tried importing these famous soccer players before but it's never worked. Just not a sport that captures our imagination I suppose. This too shall pass. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

Well it's not a very imaginative sport... :-/ pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

Hear hear! Doesn't capture my imagination, either. Conversely, I love baseball. I was born in the wrong country.

Then again... what sports are imaginative? Lacrosse? :-? pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

I find it amazing how people seem to be queueing up to take the piss out of Beckham. Is there a smell of sour grapes surrounding the queue? With a projected income of a million pounds a week it's hardly retiring now, is it? He did a hell of a lot for football in the past 10years and as the idiot American columnist thinks 90mins is 'all day', I'll take the rest of his crap report as being equally ill-informed. I wonder if the guy has ever even seen a proper football match. I've sat through several games watching the Tennessee Titans and if that is sport I'm a Dutchman. American football is nothing short of a circus, christ the players don't even have to be fit, they don't do anything that lasts for more than 45secs. They will however, eventually embrace proper football as it's the one game that is truly world-wide. They won't be able to handle the ignominy of being the only major country in the world that isn't a force to be reckoned with. OK, China isn't a footbaling nation but then they don't do much anyway apart from manufacture practically everything in the shops!

We should get the buggers to start playing cricket. It might give us someone to beat, at least for a year or two.

I'm just worried that a move to LA heralds a movie career for Victoria.

I think the intended goal of the American soccer league he is joining is to use his high profile to promote and establish the sport as a legitimate alternative to our present "big league sports" of Hockey, Basketball, Football and Baseball. The problem is that this has been tried before, several times in fact, and each resulted in the leagues going bankrupt and folding. It's more of an advertising campaign than anything, to sell something that people in general aren't interested in attending at that level. Christ, if I want to go to see an American NFL Football game (locally, the Denver Broncos) it will cost me $300 to take a friend. Soccer can't command those prices here, nor can it command the market for television air time, which means it can't command advertising dollars which means it will never rise above a minor-league status. No minor-league team can sustain paying an athlete a million a week (even if it were Pesos). Hell, I make more money than the best minor league athletes in this country. All the hub-bub about the sport being international is fine, but the United States isn't international with their sports franchises. It's a big friggn country and our sports are built on our traditions, not England’s or Germany’s...as a matter of fact, I think most Americans like the fact that we "don't do Europe" here. There is a complete indifference to what the rest of the world does when it comes to sports at that level. So, all that rubbish aside, I predict Beckham makes a ton of money, the soccer league gets some publicity, the take at the gate goes up for a while and it all eventually collapses under its own weight. Soccer in this country is for kids and housewives...plain and simple. Now George, I know you are somewhat familiar with American sports, having spent time here. You are incorrect in your assessment that an American Football player doesn’t have to be in good shape. Many of the players are amongst the fastest people in the world. Try hefting 50 pounds of equipment and wrestling with water buffalo for 3 hours. American football is probably the most physically punishing and demanding sport we have. A play may last for 20-30 seconds, but one must endure wrestling with others for up to three hours. I played football as a teenager and I can guarantee you that it will tear you apart if you aren’t fit. The average life-span of a football player is less than 5 years, due primarily to crippling injury. It is brutal. Soccer requires a different set of physical skills, as does any sport. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

"I'm just worried that a move to LA heralds a movie career for Victoria." Now, that is a truly terrifying thought. Why do so many women want to look like her? Why do so many people think she's even remotely attractive? Beats me.

I think she's horrid, but I feel rather sorry for her. She seems so desperately insecure, an anorexic stick insect with rocks for tits. Who wouldn't be insecure, I guess, with a stunning physical (NOT intellectual) specimen for a husband who has a taste for PAs (not very good-looking ones, either, I must say...) and naughty txt msgs. Plus, he holds the fortunes now, not her. When they met she was at the top of her game, and he was only a young rising star. RD, I think you've got the situation nailed as far as soccer in the States goes. And American football, as well. My best friend's brother shredded his knee ligaments in a high school football game; several surgeries and a coupla decades later, he still hasn't really recovered from it. It is a brutal sport, even with the padding.

Oh shit! Posh in the U.S..... This'll be their downfall....mark me words. There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennett

Well Gary, NFL players don't do anything that Rugby players don't do around the world, apart from go off the field everytime a new 'play' occurs, which is frequent, to allow another set of players to play for 35secs. Rugby players, (for those that don't know, Rugby is very similar to NFL in as much as they use a similar 'ball', similar tackling etc) don't wear 50lbs of 'armour', they take the knocks and play for much longer. Also the game isn't split into four 15min sections with timeout in between when the team decides they need a rest. NFL is no harder physically than Rugby. The Titans appear to start each game with at least 75 -100 players on the sidelines and hardly any of them seem to play the full game. Apart from that, the constant parade of 'tit shakers' prancing around the out-field, along with the circus performers throwing buckets of water over each other and juggling, doing acrobatics and generally contributing to the carnival atmosphere, reduces what would in any other country be a passion-fuelled experience, to a fairground. Footballers in the rest of the world have to play for two fortyfive minute periods with NO breaks and if the game is a tie after the ninety minutes they play for a further 30. The teams are allowed to substitute tired or injured players not the whole goddamned team! They also have to run for most of the game. US NFL players wouldn't last the course, that's a fact. I can see that a country as large as the US most likely doesn't need to join in with world sports but I can't believe that Americans wouldn't want to compete on world stages and win. I was in California for the first half of last years world cup and thought that the US team gave a bloody good account of themselves, spoiled only by some of the worst refereeing I've ever seen. They deserved a better deal. I'm also sure that if the US embraced the game nationwide they would very quickly be playing world class football and challenging the best for trophies. As for 'doing Europe', you seem to forget that some of the best football played is in South America and even far east and African teams are not to be taken for granted. Football really is a world-wide sport. Vicky Beckham gets a lot of unfair press. She's just doing what most girls in her place would do. I don't particularly care her for myself, but then I don't have to.

"Vicky Beckham gets a lot of unfair press." About what? She's a publicity-seeker. She's never shy of a camera. When you seek it and enjoy it as much as she does, you have to expect a certain amount of shit with the candy. I'm sure she doesn't give a toss either way.

Lot of money for doing very little. On the otherhand, he wasn't a 'natural' so had to work very hard to become the player he became. In that sense you have to take your hat of to him, at least he worked for it and couldn't have possibly envisioned what he has become worth now. Maybe because of his celebrity status football may catch on, it's big business in the UK nowadays so that may well play a part. nobody

Hey, we like our carnage to look civilized George....American Football, Rugby, very similar...There is also Australian Rules Football, which I actually enjoy watching on lelevision when available, and then you have Canadian Football which is more like our own. Now, tit jiggling...what other sport throws that in? I rest my case South America is indeed heavily into Soccer, no doubt about it. Baseball also. Mexico and Cuba most notably. Mexico...now there's a place...think I'll go there soon, come to think of it. Thanks for reminding me. Tit jiggling... Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

"I'm just worried that a move to LA heralds a movie career for Victoria." Looks like hubby might beat her to it... http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2007-01-12/#3