David Beckham will discuss a new two-year contract with Real Madrid next week.
"There is a significant deal on the table from Real. It's slightly more than he's currently on," Beckham's agent, Simon Oliveira, told the BBC on Wednesday.
The former England captain's current contract with Madrid ends in June, but he is allowed to negotiate with other clubs during this month's transfer window and can leave with Madrid's permission.
But Oliveira said Beckham would "know by March what he is going to do," indicating that the midfielder would prefer to stay at Madrid until the end of the season.
"David intends to play a major role for Real Madrid for the remainder of the season," Oliveira said. "The primary reason for any decision David makes will be a footballing one. He wants to take time over this decision. It will be the last significant deal of his football career."
The 31-year-old's place at Madrid has been in question with the arrival of midfielder Fernando Gago from Argentine club Boca Juniors last month.
Beckham has started only seven games in 24 this season, being used mostly off the bench by manager Fabio Capello.
It has been suggested Beckham could return to the Premier League, move to Italy or play for a Major League Soccer club in the US. Los Angeles Galaxy is among the clubs reportedly interested.
The British press had been reporting that image rights -- of which Madrid holds 50 percent -- were holding up a new contract, a claim Oliveira said was not "a deal breaker."
Madrid is third in the Spanish league with 32 points, five behind leader Sevilla.
A runner who stopped during a marathon in China to pose doing the splits and another who hoarded energy gels have been banned for two years, the local athletics association said yesterday. The incidents happened during Sunday’s marathon in Sichuan Province’s Chengdu and were widely shared online. Videos showed a female runner stopping suddenly and dropping to the ground in the splits position, holding up her arms in a heart shape as she apparently posed for a photograph. She “committed obstructive fouls during the race, affecting the safe participation of other runners,” the Sichuan Athletics Association said in a statement, which identified
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah on Tuesday said that he would leave the English club at the end of the Premier League season, marking an earlier-than-planned departure for one of the club’s greatest-ever scorers and soccer’s biggest names. The 33-year-old Egypt forward, who has scored 255 goals in 435 appearances for Liverpool, “reached an agreement” to quit the team a year before his contract was due to expire, the Premier League champions said. Salah’s form has dipped in his ninth year at Anfield, to such an extent that he was dropped for a stretch of games late last year — leading to the
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
There were some big games to be played yesterday in the NBA, with the Atlanta Hawks to play the Detroit Pistons in a matchup pitting a Hawks team who are rolling against a Pistons team trying to lock up the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. The Oklahoma City Thunder were to play the Boston Celtics, a showdown featuring the two most recent champions, while the Houston Rockets faced the Minnesota Timberwolves, a game that could factor mightily into Western Conference seeding. Elsewhere, the Washington Wizards were to play the Utah Jazz, with the Wizards on a 16-game slide visiting against a team