David in LA

David in LA

David Beckham is set to collect even more air miles after the Los Angeles Galaxy's owners revealed they are planning to send the team on lucrative tours to boost revenue.
Beckham is facing plenty of travel time already following his England recall, with the midfield star looking at near 11,000-mile round trips between his new home in Los Angeles and London to report for international duty as Steve McClaren's team bid to reach the European Championship finals.
The Galaxy have already lined up a friendly in Australia at the end of the Major League Soccer season in late November and Tim Leiweke, chief executive and president of the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) - who own the Galaxy - revealed other money-spinning games are being lined up for England and Asia next year.
Referring to reports Real Madrid were being offered six million US dollars (£3million) a game to play exhibition matches in Asia, Leiweke told reporters at the Home Depot Center: "I think the greatest opportunity for the Galaxy is touring and doing international matches.
"I don't think it is six million dollars a game but I think it could be a pretty good percentage of that.
"And if you can do six games a year, that can add a significant amount of value to the team and its revenue."
The Galaxy will play Sydney FC at the 83,500-seat Telstra Stadium on November 27 and Leiweke added: "We have the Australian dates locked
"We have a couple of dates in the US that we're going to do and we're mindful of giving David some rest so we're trying to be a little focused on making sure we don't overload the schedule this year.
"We're still focused on training in Asia and doing games there next year at the beginning of the season and I think it's more than likely we're going to take a trip over to 'Jolly Old' [England] and do a game or two over there next year as well."
Leiweke claimed his emphasis on lucrative friendlies stemmed in part from the inability to expand the Home Depot Center beyond its current 27,000 capacity without entering into a complex and time-consuming planning process.
He reiterated his ambition to catapult the Galaxy into the top tier of world club football during the period of Beckham's time at the club.
"I've already stated that we'd like to be considered one of the top clubs in the world and that means there's that mystical 100million dollar (£50million) revenue stream that we want to try and get into that classification," he said.
"I think that would designate us as one of the more significant and relevant clubs in the world.
"From a competitive standpoint, I think we're going to go through a bit of a learning curve.
"You can't expect that we're going to beat Chelsea or Chivas Guadalajara right off the bat. We're not quite at that level but we'd like to get to that level in the next four or five years.
"But I've always felt the biggest, most important thing that David can do above and beyond the exposure, the media coverage, the sponsorships, the dollars, the ticket sales - can David ultimately prove to a lot of other players around the world that it's okay to come and play in this league, that the quality of play, our facilities and in particular, the fan support for soccer in this country is there.
"If that happens then David has left a legacy that is probably more in impact and standing than Pele did with the North American Soccer League.
"But I think we're going to have to work hard to get to the next level. The 100million mark is not just thrown out there without understanding the consequences.
"As well as we're doing this year, we have to double our revenue and that's going to be a challenge because, as I've explained, it's not probably going to be driven by the gate here because of the restrictions from an attendance standpoint."
The AEG chief executive explained television viewing figures for Saturday's sold-out Chelsea friendly, when Beckham is due to make his Galaxy debut, would have a big bearing on how much clout the club would have when it came to re-negotiating broadcast rights contracts.
He said: "If David has the impact we think he's going to have and our ratings do what we think they're going to do then there is a good re-negotiation coming in the future for some of our packages.
"Some of our packages expire in four years, some in eight years, so clearly there's some upside there."