Spurs' bid to sign Beckham "cynical ploy" to get Olympic Stadium, claims Brady

By Duncan Mackay
British Sports Internet Writer of the Year

January 8 – Spurs’ plan to sign former England captain David Beckham on loan from Major League Soccer team Los Angeles Galaxy is to try to help them win their bid to take over the Olympic Stadium after London 2012, it has been claimed by Karren Brady, the chair of rivals West Ham United.

The two clubs are involved in an increasingly bitter campaign to be awarded the £537 million ($826 million) Stadium.

Brady has now claimed that the negotiations to sign Beckham on a three-month loan during the United States close-season is just the latest ploy.

“Call me cynical but I smell a rat in the ‘Beckham for Spurs’ reports,” Brady wrote in her weekly column published in The Sun today.

“They may feel he could help their rival bid to ours for the Olympic Stadium.

“The link is this: LA Galaxy is owned by Philip Anschutz – whose company AEG is Tottenham’s partner in their stadium bid.

“I admire Beckham as a football champion and I’d hate to see him being used as puppet for AEG.”

The clubs are supposed to have a pact not to criticise each other but this is the second time in recent weeks that Brady has used her column in Britain’s biggest selling daily newspaper to launch an attack Tottenham.

Last month in The Sun she warned Tottenham that they would not be welcome if they took over the Stadium in Stratford, five miles from their current home at White Hart Lane.

“Spurs’ is an attempted smash and grab in our manor, sneaky and of no known benefit to anyone beyond their backers and major shareholders, who by the way are not based in the UK and don’t pay UK tax unlike our owners who have always lived, worked, employed and paid tax here,” she wrote.

Contact the writer of this story at zib.l1731482150labto1731482150ofdlr1731482150owedi1731482150sni@y1731482150akcam1731482150.nacn1731482150ud1731482150