Beckham end game by Bill Kay

One of the greatest problems for footballers (soccer players to spell it out for our American cousins) is what to do after they retire from the game. A few go into management, usually thinking midfielders who fancy themselves as tactical superstars and are willing to put up with the internal politics of every club they join, just so they can get their hands on the train set. Others, if they have a tongue in their head and can string two words together, go into TV commentary. Indeed, that has proved to be a useful resting place for those who want to go into management. And it soon exposes those who aren't up to much, like the tragic Paul Gascoigne.
The traditional refuge for many of the rest was to run a pub, but that looks pretty pathetic for anyone who has had a few years on a Premiership salary. The temptation for them is to act like the lottery winners they are and spend the rest of their lives doing not very much.
That leaves David Beckham. Not the brightest, and definitely far too wealthy to bother with the grind of management - which in any case tends to favour those who didn't get to the top as players. His squeaky voice militates against a career in TV, where again the money probably doesn't stack up, and I suspect that, like many kids, he prefers playing to talking about football.
But, give the lad credit, he was clearly thinking ahead when he agreed the extraordinary deal with LA Galaxy. An alleged $250 million over five years made sense even for someone of his wealth, and the standard of football is so low that he could easily see out his contract without breaking sweat. Bye bye European football as the years catch up with him.
But what we didn't know until now was the clause in his contract that gives him the right to buy a US soccer franchise and actually make serious money as an owner - with a little help from his advisers, naturally.
All this hullaballoo about AC Milan is merely a distraction and, from Beckham's point of view, a bonus.
In his first winter break at the Galaxy he went to Arsenal to train - the break between seasons in the US is a ludicrous five months, so he had to do something to keep fit. That deal went to plan, he trained with the Arsenal players, no more came of it, handshakes all round. Arsene Wenger isn't the sort to throw his careful schemes in the air to play an aging superstar for a couple of months.
But this winter was different. He went to AC Milan, who more pragmatically gave him a few games: the Italian game is based on superstars who drift in and out of the first team. That was great for Beckham as it gave him match practice on top of his training routines - and, amazingly, he showed he has still got it at the top level. More importantly, that enabled him to show the England manager, Fabio Capello, that he was still capable of playing for England, and Capello could easily compare notes with the AC management. I suspect he also enjoys playing in Serie A after the struggles of the US league, where he is a man among boys with all the frustrations that entails.
That gave rise to the recent tug-o'-war between AC and Galaxy over Beckham's contract, which he must have loved at his age - 34 this year. But we now know that he was never going to abandon Galaxy entirely, because of that clause letting him buy a US club franchise, which I believe he sees as his long-term future after he stops playing.
Hence the convoluted compromise letting Beckham stay in Milan until the end of the current Italian season in May, taking a month off then joining Galaxy in July for the second half of the US season and enabling Galaxy's opponents to cash in on the Beckham factor at the box office.
'I don't mind if the Galaxy fans boo me,' Beckham says, I'll bet he doesn't. He is playing a much bigger game for much bigger stakes.