LA-bound Beckham has no intention of staying with Madrid

MADRID, June 10 (Reuters) David Beckham has no intention of remaining at Real Madrid despite the club president's desire to persuade the former England captain to stay on in Spain.

Ramon Calderon said today he would talk to Beckham in an attempt to convince the midfielder to trigger an escape clause on his agreement to move to MLS side LA Galaxy.

However, Beckham's camp said there was no chance of the 32-year-old backing out of his 250 million dollars deal to join the Galaxy when the Spanish season finishes.

''There is no change to David's plans,'' a spokesman told Reuters. ''He is looking forward to playing in the US and looking forward to trying to help Real Madrid win the league title (this year).

''He loves Real Madrid and loves the club's fans, but he is also set on taking up his new challenge in the US'' Sources close to the player said there was no escape clause in Beckham's contract but they expected Real to make a bid to try and keep him at the club.

Spanish media have reported that Beckham could back out of the deal with LA Galaxy if he paid compensation of some 10 million euros (13.42 million dollars) and Calderon said he would try to set up a meeting to keep the player at the club.

''Beckham has shown that he is a great player with great honour,'' Calderon was quoted as saying by the Spanish media.

''He is playing at a very high level and yesterday he battled away against (Real) Zaragoza even though he was half injured.

MEETING ''We will have to sit down with him, his representatives and (Real's sporting director Predrag) Mijatovic to look at this clause and decide what to do,'' said Calderon. ''But I would love him to stay at the club.

''There was some anger with his premature announcement of his departure, but now we are going to do all we can to make him stay,'' he added.

Beckham announced in January that he would leave Real at the end of the season to sign a five-year deal with LA Galaxy.

He was immediately told by coach Fabio Capello he would never play for Real again, while Calderon said Beckham had decided to ''go to Hollywood to be half a film star''.

Capello reversed his decision to sideline Beckham a month later, although the midfielder missed another seven weeks because of a knee ligament injury.

He returned to action at the end of April and has been one of Real's most influential players in the run-in to the end of the season.

Real will clinch their first major trophy since Beckham joined from Manchester United in 2003 if they beat Real Mallorca at home in their final league match of the season next Sunday.

REUTERS SSC BST2352