Milan hoping Beckham will return

AC Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani said on Wednesday that he is still hopeful David Beckham will return to the Italians next season despite reported interest from Tottenham.

Under his current loan deal from the Los Angeles Galaxy, Beckham is due to return to the United States in June to see out the current Major League Soccer season.

However, Milan want him to return to Italy in January, when he is free from Galaxy commitments.

“The agreements with Galaxy are very clear. We have got what we wanted and hence we have David until the end of the season,” said Galliani.

“Beckham has been an extremely important signing. We took him knowing that (Gennaro) Gattuso was injured.

“I hope Beckham comes back to us but from now until the January transfer window he will definitely be in Los Angeles.”

Earlier this week the Sun newspaper in Britain claimed Tottenham wanted to hijack any agreement between Beckham and Milan and take him to north London.

Meanwhile, Galliani claimed that but for injuries, Milan would be challenging for the title this season instead of sitting 10 points behind leaders Inter Milan.

“We are convinced that this team, without the injuries, would have been fighting for the scudetto,” he said.

“But the injuries happened and there were many of them and now we’ll just try to finish the season as well as possible.”