West Ham’s interest in Beckham not grounded in reality

The news that West Ham are looking to pursue the signing of injured Milan and La Galaxy midfielder David Beckham is certainly one of the week’s strangest stories.

Chairman David Gold has stated that “David keeps on showing he still has so much to offer and if he’s available then we want to be bidding” and whilst this ambition is welcoming to see, it’s also a tad unrealistic and surely their time should be better spent pursuing realistic options.

Gold went onto say that “It’s not only a case of what he can do on the pitch but what he does off it – he’d be a sensational ambassador for his home-town club. He’s a local boy like the two owners and this could appeal to him.” It seems a club as close to financial ruin as West Ham, which the two David’s never tire of telling us, can rather reasonably see that signing a player of Beckham’s reputation has its financial as well as footballing benefits, and it would be hard to disagree with that. But the theory that just because he is from East London, that he’d want to sign for West Ham even when there is likely to be an offer from Milan is just laughable.

I’d argue that their proposed interest is the very definition of fanciful, if Beckham wanted to play for his boyhood club he would have shown some movement and said something about it by now. At 34 years of age now and after suffering a terrible injury such as he has, its questionable whether he’ll even be able to perform at Premiership level now and the slower pace of Serie A suits his game a lot better, and this may even be more so the case in six months time when he is scheduled to return to full fitness.

There is simply too much up in the air now with Beckham’s condition at the moment for the West Ham Chairman to come out and publicly state he’s interested in signing him. It smacks of trying to draw publicity to the club for some unknown reason. Both Gold and Sullivan have a very ‘look at me’ style of going about being a Chairman or Chief Executive, they do their job fairly well but in a noisy fashion. I long for the days of the quiet steward with a bit of money, something like a John Moores, or like Randy Lerner is now for Villa.

They have obviously brought a measure of structure to West Ham, there is no doubt about that, but I just question the need for these constant press releases about their opinions that happen seemingly every other day. This latest bizarre claim is also as mistimed as it is ill-judged.

Does anybody seriously think West Ham are going to follow up their initial interest in Beckham in six months time? I don’t, it’s a well worn trick Chairman use to show supporters that they are moving in the right direction, that the fans ambitions will be matched by the board – link yourself with a big name player, and then when he signs for another club, which they almost always do, say you tried your best to get him and that you’ll follow it up soon with another outlandish claim to sign an entirely different player. Bill Kenwright’s been doing it for years down at Everton, and it’s a mark of a Chairman unwilling to part with cash.

It’s a smart move on their part but it’s just nonsense really in practice and Beckham is never likely to move back to the Premiership let alone to West Ham, just because he may have some kind of affiliation with the area from long ago, it’s a cliché, and as is often the case with cliché’s, makes little sense.

There are bigger fish to fry for Gold and Sullivan, such as securing Premiership status and survival, assuring manager Gianfranco Zola of his future, and if this is not the case, bringing in a replacement, a restructuring of the club’s finances and an overhaul of their wage structure – these should surely take precedence over fanciful and unrealistic promises such as moving to sign Beckham.

I’m not arguing he’s above West Ham, of course he’s not, but perhaps Gold and Sullivan should practice what they preach a little more and put an end to the days of unrealistic dreams and broken promises down at Upton Park, they were brought in to bring solidity and realism, the move for Beckham shows anything but.

Written By James McManus