[RedBullsSoccer]

Beckham, M.L.S. and Montreal

By JACK BELL
David Beckham speaks English, a bit of Spanish and a smattering of Italian. And soon, perhaps, French.

As part of his five-year deal with Major League Soccer and the Los Angeles Galaxy, Beckham’s contract includes a clause that enables him to operate a team, or part of a team, in M.L.S. as early as the 2012 season.

“I have the right to own an M.L.S. franchise, which I will action immediately after I have stopped playing,” Beckham told the BBC.

M.L.S. will add one team in 2010 (the Philadelphia Union) and two in 2011 (the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Portland Timbers). League officials have said they would like to expand, to 20 teams, perhaps as early as 2012, and it is increasingly likely that Montreal will get the 19th team.

According to a person with knowledge of Beckham’s planning who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concern about jeopardizing a potential deal, Beckham, 34, and his management team at 19 Entertainment (led by Simon Fuller) and Creative Artists Agency (led by Jeff Frasco) are interested in being partners with Joey Saputo, the owner of the Montreal Impact. The Impact plays in the United Soccer Leagues First Division, one tier down from M.L.S.

Other than confirming that he has been approached by a group of potential partners, Saputo declined to speak in anything other than general terms about his long-running efforts to obtain an M.L.S. team in Montreal.

“I can say yes, we were approached about two months ago, but I can’t say by whom,” Saputo said in a telephone interview late last week. “I think Montreal would be a great candidate to be the 19th team in M.L.S. no matter who’s involved.”

Beckham is in England, where the national team is scheduled to play Croatia in a World Cup qualifier Wednesday in London.

Montreal has been a part of the M.L.S. expansion discussion for several years. Saputo was among the bidders for one of two teams last November, but ended up on the sideline. The city has a long soccer history that dates to Le Manic in the North American Soccer League. In the past year, Montreal hosted a Concacaf Champions League match that attracted 55,000 to Olympic Stadium, and a French Cup match that attracted 35,000 in July.

The stumbling block, in the view of M.L.S., is the limited seating capacity (13,000) at Stade Saputo. Now, the club, city and province are nearing a deal in which Quebec would provide more than $20 million to expand the stadium.

“While we have recently had preliminary discussions with the Saputo family about future M.L.S. expansion into Montreal, we have not had any discussions with David Beckham or his representatives regarding ownership of an expansion team in Montreal,” Dan Courtemanche, the league’s senior vice president for marketing and communications, said in an e-mail message. “Commissioner Don Garber and President Mark Abbott expect to travel to Montreal prior to the end of the year to discuss expansion with Joey Saputo. However, M.L.S. has not yet set a timetable for expansion beyond Portland and Vancouver’s entry into the league in 2011.”

It is reasonable to assume that Montreal, with or without the Beckham group, is likely to be the league’s 19th team. Like Vancouver and Portland (and Seattle this year), Montreal would not be an expansion team in the strict sense of the term. And perhaps that is what has attracted Beckham.

For its part, M.L.S. and Garber have publicly stated that they would like a second team in the New York area. Garber once spoke about a club run by the family of Fred Wilpon, the principal owner of the Mets. But the Wilpons lost millions in the Ponzi scheme run by Bernard L. Madoff and are now believed to be out of the picture. The league probably now imagines a 20th team in New York associated with Beckham, but he may have other ideas.

http://www.nytimes.c...agewanted=print