Real 'don't want Beckham'

By Nigel Adderley
Sportsnews correspondent

Real have rejected speculation that Beckham is heading to Spain

Real Madrid President Florentino Perez has told BBC Sport that David Beckham will never sign for his club.

The Spanish giants released a statement on Tuesday evening denying the speculation linking them with the Manchester United star.

And Senor Perez went further with a passionate outburst after a G14 meeting in Brussels.

"Never, never, never. Nobody at Real has ever spoken about Beckham and I don't want to start now," Perez told BBC Radio Five Live.

Real deny Beckham interest

"We are very happy with our current team and will never, ever sign Beckham."

The comments were welcome news for United's chief executive Peter Kenyon, who has spent the last week fending off enquiries about their prized asset.

The rumours raged after Beckham was left out of the starting line-up for their Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid club last week.

"All the speculation about David's future has reached new heights lately because he's had a phenomenal season, but this had almost been overshadowing everything we've achieved," Kenyon said.

"David has stated himself that he doesn't want to go anywhere but we have always been reluctant to make any public statements of any sort about the make-up of our team for next season.

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"We didn't want to get into a situation where we deny rumours because we'll get linked with every big transfer during what promises to be a long hot summer."

Kenyon added: "We've never spoken with Real and David's people assure me he doesn't want to leave. All the people in the know are together on this so it's nice to have Madrid's position clarified."

Beckham is United's most bankable asset on and off the field, contributing to their corporate profile as much as their trophy cabinet.

Kenyon has also denied rumours of a fall-out between Beckham and United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

Lawro: Beckham will go

"We spent 12 months negotiating a new contract with David Beckham which still has two years to go, so that shows how much we think of him," Kenyon said.

"Decisions on our players are based purely on football and Sir Alex goes into every game picking the team he thinks will win and that's fact."