of the News, "The behind-the-scenes atmosphere at the Galaxy is positively poisonous. This is an organisation that has run a once-admired club into the ground."

Tim Leiweke, chief executive of AEG, the huge entertainment company which owns the Galaxy, tried to blame the players for the problems, publicly describing the team as "dysfunctional" and lamenting that "unfortunately you can't fire 22 players". But the real problem for the Galaxy is that there is just one player they cannot fire: David Beckham. What makes the situation even more humiliating for the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star is that since his arrival, he and 'Team Beckham' - which includes his personal football adviser Terry Bryne and his personal manager, Simon Fuller - have effectively been running the club, having taken over many of the key personnel decisions.

"The captain of England calls the shots," says Grahame Jones of the Los Angeles Times. In particular, Team Beckham was responsible for the disastrous hiring of Gullit. "Ruud was their guy," admits AEG's

Leiweke.

While Beckham's arrival in the MLS has boosted overall attendance and merchandising sales, even those are now slowing as Beckham and the Galaxy's performance on the pitch fail to live up to the hype that greeted him 18 months ago.

Equally galling for Beckham, as his career splutters to what could be an ignominious end, is the fact that a genuine new foreign sports star is currently firing up Los Angelenos.

In the few weeks since the Dominican-born baseball slugger Manny Ramirez, with his idiosyncratic ways and flowing dreadlocks, arrived at the LA Dodgers, he has become the most thrilling thing to happen to Los Angeles sports in years. With his game-winning hits, he has quickly taken the team into title contention. Attendance at Dodger games now tops 55,000, often several times a week, tens of thousands more than turn out to see David Beckham not win week after week.

"He's the big guy we’ve been waiting for years," said one fan. "There's a real buzz."