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Home / Sport / Football

Soccer: Success breeds prospect of Beckham's return

By Michael Brown
8 Dec, 2007 04:00 PM3 mins to read

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David Beckham. Photo / Reuters

David Beckham. Photo / Reuters

KEY POINTS:

Beckham mania could hit these shores again after Terry Serepisos confirmed he will invite the footballing superstar and the LA Galaxy for another match in the next 18 months.

The Wellington philanthropist, who doubles as the Phoenix owner, also hopes to host another major world side here next
year.

Serepisos said the visit of David Beckham and the Galaxy was such a rousing success that he had been inundated with calls from agents seeing if he wanted to host other sides.

New Zealand Football chief executive Graham Seatter has also been approached by the Football Federation of Australia to dovetail on a tour by a "major football nation" next year.

"It [the visit of Beckham] has been an amazing experience and I would do it all again," Serepisos said.

"We have a good relationship with the Galaxy and we would look to possibly bring David back in a year's time. Not early next season but maybe the year after that because we will let things calm down a bit.

"We are being approached a lot because we have now shown as a club and a city that we can do it. It would be nice to have a team like Manchester United down here, although it's not them, but we have been approached by teams close to that calibre. I won't name teams but they are very large teams.

"We are fortunate that when sides go to Australia, it's only a hop, skip and a jump to come down here. I think we could see someone else come through next year. I certainly don't think it just ends here like that."

New Zealand has experienced spikes of interest in football in the past and not taken advantage of it but with Serepisos' money and drive there seems a better chance than previously to achieve this.

It cost Serepisos $1.15 million to bring Beckham over to play one game against his Phoenix side, money he said he recovered.

More than 31,000 watched the match at the Westpac Stadium, a record for a football match in this country, while 18,000 attended the Phoenix's match against Adelaide the previous evening.

Furthermore, 16,000 watched Beckham train before the match and there were also good merchandise and sponsorship returns.

"I don't know the exact financials because we are working through them now but we didn't lose money," he said.

Seatter said he had also been sounded out by the FFA about sharing costs to bring out a major national side but that the costs were likely to be too high.

"We are in regular discussions with Australia and they have indicated they are interested in bringing out a major football nation next year," Seatter said. "They asked us if we were prepared to share some of the travel and television costs but the appearance fee for really big nations is up to $2 million. From our point of view, the maths don't work and we can't take the risk."

NZF are still desperately seeking compensation from the Government for $500,000 for the postponement of the World Cup qualifier against Fiji after the Fijian goalkeeper was denied a visa to enter New Zealand.

This was initially turned down by the Government but it is back on the table now after NZF received support from Sparc.

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