This by John Carlin in the Sunday Times
Real Madrid wanted the world’s most recognisable player and were ready to pay a fortune to get their man. They couldn’t believe their luck when United named their price.
Peanuts. That was the word that sprang to the mind of Jose Angel Sanchez, the director of marketing at Real Madrid. He had clinched the purchase of David Beckham for a shockingly low sum. For peanuts. No word in his own language, Spanish, expressed with more biting economy his stupefaction at Manchester United’s decision to surrender their most precious jewel so lamely.
Sanchez could not believe his ears when Peter Kenyon, Manchester United’s chief executive, named his price: ¤35m (£24m). It was as if United had failed to realise what they, the pioneers of merchandising and global sponsorship in the modern game, ought to have understood better than anybody. As if they had calculated Beckham’s worth in terms merely of the market rate for a footballer of his abilities, failing to add into the mix his value as the most resounding brand name in world sport.
So why had it all been so easy? Why so much cheaper than Figo, Zidane and Ronaldo? Six months after Beckham joined, I put those questions separately to four of the top Real Madrid executives. Their first response was, in each case, to shrug. They hadn’t believed it at the time. They couldn’t quite fully believe it now. But once they began examining the possible factors involved, all roads led to one conclusion: that while the first three galacticos had had to be prised away from their clubs in operations requiring all of Perez’s tenacity and accumulated business cunning, as well as lots of cash, Beckham had been almost given away. Manchester United’s position had been, "Here, take him! We don’t want him any more." It had not been Kenyon’s position. Through little fault of his own, he found himself in a predicament in which he had little choice but to hand over Beckham for a song, or at least for much less than he had originally estimated the selling price would be.
Kenyon knew Beckham was worth more to the club in marketing terms than all the rest of the United players combined. Kenyon did not want him to leave. In his heart of hearts, he would rather have let Ferguson go than Beckham. Kenyon was privately of the opinion that Ferguson had got far too big for his boots, that he had come to see himself as bigger not just than the players but than the club itself. But the successes of the previous decade had made Ferguson’s position unassailable among the fans.
So how did Perez set about capturing Beckham? At first, by doing nothing. Like a hunter in the forest, an image he liked, he hid in the undergrowth and lay in wait, eyes peeled, ears alert, believing that sooner or later, if he showed enough perseverance and patience, opportunity would come his way. He suspected from the start that his best chance of landing Beckham would come from what he described as the looming bust-up between Beckham and Ferguson. But it was not until February and the Flying Boot incident that Perez became aware of how favourably things were turning out for him. He also knew that the more badly, and more visibly, United wanted to let go of Beckham, the lower the price would be. A seller who makes no secret of his desire to sell is every buyer’s dream.
The rest of the article is here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2767-1257346_1,00.html