THE ANNOTICO REPORT

For the next three months, Beckham will play for AC Milan until May 31.He will then be available for England's two World Cup qualifying games in early June before taking a couple of weeks off. On July 1, he rejoins the Galaxy for the rest of the Major League Soccer season.

Milan had to agree to play the Galaxy in Carson on July 19 in what will be Beckham's homecoming game, that will be a fan favorite
Milan already had a three-game East Coast tour scheduled this summer and initially balked at adding a fourth stop 3,000 miles away.

Chief executive wasn't about to let the midfielder leave for next to nothing. AC Milan will play in Los Angeles this summer and Landon Donovan will take on a larger leadership role for the Galaxy.

Tim Leiweke flew to Europe on Saturday night, and once he had settled back into his first-class seat and was nursing a decent drink, the chief executive of AEG could relax, knowing that the trip had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with David Robert Joseph Beckham.

The long-drawn-out saga that has been the tussle between AEG and AC Milan over the services of soccer's well-traveled English midfielder is finally at an end, and not a moment too soon.

For the next three months, Beckham is a Serie A player, confined to the red and black vertical stripes of the Rossoneri, for whom he will play against Atalanta on Sunday (noon on Fox Soccer Channel) in Milan.

Not until July 1 does he again become the Galaxy's problem.

Leiweke said getting the Italian team to understand that the Galaxy was serious about not simply giving Beckham away -- it was asking $10 million to $15 million for him -- was partly to blame for the time it took to get a deal done.

Getting Milan to agree to play the Galaxy in Carson on July 19 in what will be Beckham's homecoming game, as it were, was another sticking point.

"I'm sorry that it had to go on so long, for him and for us and particularly for our fans," Leiweke said on Saturday afternoon, indicating that AC Milan had perhaps underestimated Galaxy owner AEG's resolve.

"Milan thought, 'Hey, David wants to do this, so we don't need to do anything,' " Leiweke said, without mentioning the low-ball $3-million offer AC Milan had made. "We had to get to a point where they understood that David doesn't own this contract, the Galaxy does, and this isn't going to be just about 'Let's make David happy.'

"That was where the complication was. Milan needed to understand we weren't just going to turn around and say, 'Oh, yeah, no problem, keep him for a couple more months.' "

Getting Beckham to see the MLS light was also important.

"I think after some conversations between us and David and his folks, David began to understand that he didn't want to leave the league either," Leiweke said. "So this is a good solution. It allows him to finish the season with Milan. We will see him in July. I'm very excited about the Milan game."

Beckham will stay in Italy until May 31. He will then be available for England's two World Cup qualifying games in early June before taking a couple of weeks off. On July 1, he rejoins the Galaxy for the rest of the Major League Soccer season.

And when he does arrive, he could be answering to Landon Donovan, assuming the U.S. national team forward accepts the team leadership role being thrust upon him by AEG.

When Beckham first arrived, Donovan handed him the captain's armband that had been Donovan's. Now, AEG wants him to take it back.

"Landon's the man," Leiweke said. "We clearly believe that long-term this team is built around Landon Donovan. He's the best American player by far. This is obviously a crucial couple of years for him and for us, with the World Cup [in South Africa in 2010] and with the Galaxy trying to get back to where we used to be.

"So there is no question. And David agrees with that, by the way. David believes this team should be Landon's team."

Leiweke hopes that Galaxy fans, frustrated by the entire Beckham affair, will be soothed by a rollback of ticket prices that averages 10% across the board to make up for Beckham's 17-game absence in 2009.

"There's a rollback on every single ticket," Tom Payne, the Galaxy's president of business operations, said on Saturday.

"The truth is, we've been talking about this for quite a while. It's the right thing to do based on the fact that the player [Beckham] is coming back in mid-year, but it's also the right thing to do based on where we are with the economy."

The prospect of seeing such AC Milan's star-studded team in person on July 19 might also improve the fans' mood.

Milan already had a three-game East Coast tour scheduled this summer and balked at adding a fourth stop 3,000 miles away.

"They didn't want to do the game," Leiweke said, "and we told them we're not making this deal without the game."

Leiweke said the Galaxy also is arranging another high-profile friendly match during the coming MLS season, which begins on March 19.

By playing hardball, AEG and the Galaxy prevailed, at least in their eyes.

"There was no way we were going to let David just leave, that wouldn't have been good for our team," Leiweke said. "And we weren't going to let David opt out at the end of the year and show nothing for it.

"The resolution here is a good one, where there is a cash payment for the loan and for the extension of the loan, and there are some cash consequences if David opts out at the end of the year as well."

Beckham with or without AC Milan's help, can buy out the last two years of his five-year contract once the MLS season ends on Nov. 22. Already, according to AC Milan executive Adriano Galliani, Beckham has shown the willingness to do so.

"All players express their affection for a club," Galliani said Saturday on the team's in-house television channel, "but few have shown it in such a tangible manner by renouncing a mountain of money. Beckham is one of these."

Leiweke pointed to a different motivation.

"He's looking forward to coming back, but he knows that his only shot with the national team in England is if he continues to play in Milan over the next few months," he said.

As for the Galaxy and MLS having their reputation tarnished by the whole Beckham affair, the AEG chief said that Saturday's agreement should put that idea to rest.

"David's happy that it worked out the way it has and he's excited," he said. "His wife and kids weren't going anywhere. They were staying here. So when people were saying he loathed coming back here and he didn't want to do it and he thought he'd made a mistake coming, that was [nonsense].

"It'll be interesting to see if he buys his way out at the end of the year. I think a lot of it has to do with us. If we're good and competitive and he has fun, then I would not be shocked if David tries to convince [England Coach Fabio] Capello that he can do what he did last year, which is stay with the Galaxy and still play for the national team."

The final chapter, it seems, still lies ahead.

grahame.jones@latimes.com
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