Here's the BBC's take on the FC Barcelona presidential elections and on the "possible signing" of David Beckham, which the Barcelona sports papers are reporting as nearly a done deal while the British press is saying no way he's coming to Barcelona. If I were Beckham I wouldn't come anywhere near a team that won't be back in the Champions' League anytime soon, and if I were the Barça I wouldn't try to sign him anyway since he's a player at his peak with only one direction to travel in his career--downhill. Players at their peak are at their highest price based on their past accomplishments--and they have one or two more good seasons left in them before they're clearly in the decline stage. You don't buy a player at his peak because he's already accomplished most of what he's going to. You don't buy seventeen-year-old kids, either. You buy players between 21 and 23 or so. These guys have already established that they're developing players--they're not just phenoms, but they're still cheap because they haven't accomplished much yet. They may not turn out to be great but they'll be at least competent.

Murph says that I might be right footballistically, but that the whole deal with signing Beckham is the publicity and the marketing. I say that the best publicity and marketing policy is having a winning team and that Becks is not the way to go to build a winner.

Also, who's going to be the coach?

Speculation by Murph: Joan Laporta will have the shortest honeymoon as president in history, since Real Madrid will almost certainly sign Beckham sometime this summer. "The squeals of delight from Laporta's pijo backers will turn to howls of rage when Becks puts on the white shirt, and he will be lame-ducked," says Iberian Notes' Official Inside Football and Political Ideology Prognosticator.