Beckham Loan Official By Friday

Major League Soccer is reportedly planning an announcement as early as Friday to confirm that superstar David Beckham will be joining up with AC Milan on a short-term loan when the winter transfer window opens in January, with his return to America slated shortly before the start of the 2009 MLS preseason.
“Nothing is confirmed yet,” Beckham’s agent Simon Oliveira told England’s Daily Mail. “But the intention is to go to AC Milan on loan for January and February. He would be going there with the view to keeping fit and being available for selection for England.

“The idea is he then goes back to the Galaxy to join up with their pre-season in March,” confirmed Oliveira. “He will not be joining AC Milan permanently. He had a five-year contract with the Galaxy and has three years left and every intention of fulfilling that.”

MLS commissioner Don Garber has echoed Oliveira’s statements, telling the media, “Discussions have taken place between AC Milan and the Los Angeles Galaxy regarding the possibility of a short-term loan agreement that would allow David Beckham to play for AC Milan during the MLS offseason. David remains an LA Galaxy player and will be here for the start of the 2009 MLS season.”

Returning to Europe became a viable option to the Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder following head coach Fabio Capello’s ultimatum for Beckham to either find a way to be playing competitive soccer over the next four months or face getting axed from the England squad for good ahead of an international friendly in February.

“For the game against Spain, if he is not playing, he will not be in the squad,” said Capello, Beckham’s former coach at Real Madrid, before going on to praise the midfielder’s continuing role in his squad. “He is good for the group. This is very important – his influence. He knows everything; he transmits confidence in the other players.”

By joining up with Milan in the New Year, Beckham will restart his European club career after 18 months in the United States, going from playing alongside the likes of Peter Vagenas and Alvaro Pires to teaming up with Kaka, Ronaldinho, Seedorf, and Pato, among others. But not everybody is happy with the potential loan.

“I would think [given] the position the Galaxy is in and [the fact that] we’re rebuilding our team and trying to have a successful year, it would seem very odd to me if we were loaning out our top players at the start of the season,” said current Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena. “It would seem pretty odd to me to operate that way.”