Beckham not for Nou Camp, says Antic

BARCELONA coach Raddy Antic does not believe reports that the club will sign England captain David Beckham.

Barca are preparing to elect a new club president and, although candidate Joan Laporta suggested he could snap up Beckham from Manchester United, he has only a slim chance of winning the most votes of Barca’s 100,000 members, with Luis Bassat the clear favourite.

It is the silly season in the Catalonian city, with the wealthy aspirants to the club’s top job suggesting they will splash out to land the likes of Beckham, if elected to the presidency.

Beckham‘s club-mate Ruud van Nistelrooy and even Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas, have also been mentioned as targets of other candidates.

Antic will learn whether he still has a definite future at Barca following the June 15 elections, as he is currently in the job on a caretaker basis only.

He does not expect to be given an open cheque-book, regardless of who is chosen to succeed Joan Gaspart at the helm.

It had been reported a £30 million deal for Beckham is all but done, with negotiations between the clubs at an advanced stage, but Antic has not been involved in any talks and insists he would need to be consulted, at the very least, before Barca could delve into the transfer market.

“Football isn’t like El Corte Ingles [a Spanish supermarket chain], where you go and sign who you like,” he told the El Mundo Deportivo newspaper. “Nobody knows better than coaches what the teams need and what is possible in the market.”

Antic has been given a conditional one-year contract to stay at Barca, though it must be agreed to by the new president.

Among the players most directly under threat, should Beckham join Barca, ahead of Real Madrid and a host of Italian teams who are supposedly interested, would be Marc Overmars.

Like Antic, Overmars believes talk of signing the England captain is based on electioneering propaganda. He also dismisses suggestions that fellow Dutchman van Nistelrooy might be tempted to leave Old Trafford after only two seasons with Premiership champions.

David Beckham will tonight make a televised appeal for fans of the national team to control their behaviour. The FA were recently fined £78,000 by UEFA after crowd disturbances marred England’s Euro 2004 qualifier with Turkey at Sunderland in April.