Beckham sidetracks Edwards

On the day Manchester United announced a small rise in half-yearly pre-tax profits, from Stg£11 million to £12.2 million, the club's chairman and chief executive, Martin Edwards, once again revealed his capacity for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Rather than focus on the commercial achievement of maintaining profit in the face of escalating wages, such as Roy Keane's reported £52,000 per week, Edwards allowed himself to be sidetracked into the issue of David Beckham's future at Old Trafford.

Although Beckham (24) has close to three years left on his contract, there has been agitation by Beckham's wife, Victoria Adams, among others, that Beckham deserves an improved contract similar in scale to that negotiated by Keane.

This ignores the fact that at the end of next season a number of United salaries will be reconsidered to reflect the club's new television and sponsorship deals.

Yesterday all Edwards had to do was repeat that this is the case, but instead he added fuel to the Beckham debate by saying of the United midfielder: "He's free to negotiate what he believes is fair and we will try and stretch to that. But if we can't reach an agreement, so be it, he will be put on the transfer market."

Edwards went on to say: "We will weigh up the dangers of losing key players, but to say that players can ask for what they want doesn't make sense."

The second part of Edwards's argument is itself economic commonsense, but it is the nature of his initial comment that will surely embroil him in controversy.

To say that Beckham will be put on the market if he does not agree to United's offer is possibly a statement of fact, but that scenario is a long way down the line if we are to believe Alex Ferguson's words that he and Beckham have made up after Beckham was dismissed from training prior to the Leeds United game five weeks ago.

For one day of the year Beckham's name did not need to be in the papers and, unless he is pre-empting Beckham, Edwards's comment was careless. He would have been better advised to have followed the example of Roland Smith, United's plc chairman, who said: "Beckham's got three years left to go on his contract. He's certainly staying."

United's rise in profits came even though the wage bill in the past six months has risen by another £3 million due to the signing of Mark Bosnich, Massimo Taibi, Mikael Silvestre and Quinton Fortune. There was also an improved contract for Ferguson in recognition of his work last season.

"Player costs will continue to increase, but the negotiations will largely take place after we renegotiate the television deals," said director Peter Kenyon. "Therefore we feel we will be in a good position to keep costs in line withrevenues."

The club also announced that they will be opening another 20 Manchester United shops over the course of the next two years.