David Beckham’s unique "timeshare" agreement between the LA Galaxy and AC Milan appears to have left him in the middle of a tug-of-war between club coach Bruce Arena and national manager Fabio Capello.
The fresh dispute is over England’s scheduled friendly fixture against the Netherlands in August.
Beckham will be back in the MLS at this time, and his club are extremely reluctant to lose the midfielder for any longer, given that their star man is already missing the first two months of the MLS season, while he sees out the rest of the Serie A campaign with AC Milan.
England face World Cup Qualifying double-headers in June, September, and October, which will see Beckham miss an increasing number of MLS matches if he is selected for national duty.
Galaxy coach Bruce Arena is thus extremely hopeful of being able to keep hold of Beckham in August, rather than see the player travel thousands of miles for a midweek friendly.
However, Capello has previously been very clear in his determination not to be dictated to in regards to player selection.
An FA spokesman made the following statement, further backing up this claim: "Fabio Capello has no plans to make any special exemption with regard to the call-up of any players for England squads.”
The fact that Beckham has self-financed the "timeshare" deal with the primary objective of making himself available for England makes it unlikely that he will be willing to sit out the August friendly.
This will further infuriate the Galaxy as they lose their main attraction for even more games and increasingly appear to be a distant third priority for Beckham, behind his country and AC Milan.
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