By Duncan Mackay
November 19 – England’s 2018 World Cup bid is set to save £50,000 on transporting David Beckham (pictured) to South Africa to promote its campaign after Los Angeles Galaxy cancelled its post-season tour of Germany.
The Galaxy were scheduled to play FC Kaiserslautern on Thursday, November 26, and Schalke 04 on Tuesday, December 1 in Germany.
England were set to charter a special private plane after the match in Gelsenkirchen, where Schalke play, to ensure that Beckham would arrive in South Africa the next morning in time to meet the 24 members of FIFA’s Executive Committee gathered in Cape Town for the draw of the 2010 World Cup.
They hope the presence of Beckham will help promote England’s bid to bring the World Cup back to the country for the first time since 1966.
The decision by Galaxy to abandon the tour means that Beckham should be able to catch a scheduled flight and may even be able to arrive in Cape Town earlier to help the World Cup bid.
Tom Payne, Galaxy’s vice-president of business operations, claimed problems with the tour promoter for the cancellation of the tour.
He said: ”We are very disappointed to announce the cancellation of our 2009 Postseason Tour due to a lack of communication and performance by the tour’s organiser and promoter IMC Group, Inc.
“Unfortunately, IMC Group Inc has not performed their obligations of the agreement thus far, nor do we have faith that they will be able to do so in the future.
“With MLS Cup 2009 this weekend in Seattle, we feel that it is important to make this decision now and remove the potential distractions to our team, rather than continue to hold out hope that the tour will indeed take place.
“These matches were to be a great way to conclude the year and we looked forward to playing two excellent matches against top German teams and in front of the great fans in Germany.
“I certainly understand that many fans will be disappointed not to see the Galaxy on tour, but we look forward to one day being able to play on German soil.
“We regret this decision but were left with no other choice.”
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