Fast Break
Soccer
Beckham will return to Galaxy
David Beckham is coming back to the Los Angeles Galaxy.
The English midfielder will return to the MLS team next month as scheduled after his loan agreement with AC Milan ends.
Tim Leiweke, president of Galaxy parent AEG, said Friday the Italian club didn’t make a second offer to the Galaxy to keep Beckham so the team will adhere to MLS commissioner Don Garber’s deadline to resolve the situation.
The Galaxy had already rejected Milan’s first offer.
“We didn’t receive an offer today,” Leiweke told the Associated Press by phone from Colorado. “We will abide by the commissioner’s wishes, so we are clear at this point that we don’t want to have any further conversations.”
Leiweke said he had not spoken directly to Beckham, but that he informed the player’s representatives the loan would not be made permanent. Beckham’s five-year Galaxy contract is owned by MLS, and he is due in the team’s training camp on March 9.
“I know David is emotionally invested, but I don’t think Milan really was that interested in spending the money we would have had to receive to compensate us for our losses,” Leiweke said.
Arenafootball2
Defensive coach returns to Shock
Spokane Shock defensive coordinator Alex Sirianni will return for a third season, the team announced.
Last season the Sirianni-led Shock defense placed near the top of the league in several key defensive categories, finishing third in total defense (first in the National Conference), first in rushing defense (14.6 yards/game), and third in pass defense efficiency (first in the National Conference).
The Shock will open the season at the Arena on April 3.
Boxing
Johansson remembered
Six members of Ingemar Johansson’s amateur boxing club carried the former heavyweight champion’s casket from a packed memorial, a sign on a garland of flowers reading “Once a Champ, always a Champ.”
More than 1,000 people attended the funeral in Johanssen’s hometown of Goteborg, Sweden. He died at a nursing home on Feb. 6 after having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia more than 10 years ago. He was 76.
Known as “Ingo” to Swedes, Johansson stunned the boxing world when he knocked out Floyd Patterson to win the heavyweight title at Yankee Stadium on June 26, 1959.
Raymond Patterson, Floyd Patterson’s brother, honored Johansson by donating a gift to the Swedish fighter’s memorial fund.
The service in the Vasa church, Goteborg’s second largest, was open to the public.