American sports fans are often surprised at how relatively low the salaries of European soccer players are. A variation of the reserve clause, long outlawed in American sports, continues to exists overseas, allowing a team to keep a player indefinitely. In the case of a few star players, some freedom of movement does exist, but the teams can keep salaries within reason by "transferring" a player to another team, in effect swapping a star for cash.

Such is what happened today, when the world's most famous athlete, David Beckham (as in Bend It Like...) was sold today to Real Madrid for $41 million. The former Manchester United star, who is sort of a combination of Kobe Bryant and Ben Affleck (according to a recent poll in his new home country, he is second behind Brad Pitt in terms being the "sexual fantasy" of Spanish women--btw, that same poll has me in third), and whose rabid following has been known to do some rather unusual things in honor of their hero, will earn about $9 million a year from the transaction, making him one of the most well-paid soccer players in Europe, which is still less than what the average free agent makes in baseball or basketball. Chuck Finley and Brad Radke made as much money last season. Zydrunas Ilgauskas "earned" even more.

Selling a player, rather than trading him straight up for other players or draft picks, allows the team to control the market for the services of athletes. Beckham's only leverage was to refuse the deal, a move he made last week when he refused a deal that would have sent him to FC Barcelona, but he did not have the ability to put his services up to the highest bidder. Obviously, playing in America is no option, as it was back in the glory days of the North American Soccer League; only a few national leagues have teams that have the wherewithal to financially compete for the top players, creating a system dominated by less than a dozen teams. Anyone who thinks that "small market" teams have it bad in baseball should take a look at the English Premier League, where every year the league title is a foregone conclusion for United or Arsenal.