In one of those mindboggling foreign thingies, David Beckham’s contract with Real Madrid contains a standard buyout clause. That is, it specifies the minimum amount another club would have to pay the Spanish side for his contract. But what sets my eyes spinning is the amount: £140 million or, in US currency, $257.555 million!
Later: Just finished watching Beckham’s old club, Manchester United, host Portuguese champions FC Porto in a Champions League clash. This was the second leg of the round, with Porto winning 2-1 at home two weeks ago. ManU took a 1-0 lead after 32 minutes on a sweet header by Paul Scholes but, two minutes from the end of regulation, their defense was way out of position on the rebound from a 25 yard free kick and one of Porto’s men put it net. Porto goes through to the CL quarterfinals on the aggregate score 3-2.
What was really sad, even though I’m no ManU fan, is that the referee, a Russian named Valentin Ivanov, took the game away. Just before halftime Scholes appeared to have scored a second goal but it was waived off by the sideline assistant referee who judged that Scholes was offside; however, the replays showed clearly that he wasn’t and it should have been game over, Red Devils up 2-0. Then late in the second period Ivanov made another game changing error, calling a foul on Christian Ronaldo for diving when the midfielder was clearly fouled badly by a Porto player and in fact had to be carried off the playing area on a stretcher–at first the announcers thought the referee was reaching to give Ronaldo a yellow! All in all, on a night when they didn’t show brilliance but did play well, a major loss for Manchester United.
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