Is Celestine Babayaro Headed Our Way?

By: Laurie | January 21st, 2008

This rumor actually comes from a pretty legitimate source — Times Online of London — so I’m inclined to believe it has credibility. It says this is absolutely, positively a done deal.

“Celestine Babayaro has agreed a three-year deal with Los Angeles Galaxy after being released by Newcastle United. The left back, 29, will play under Ruud Gullit, who signed him for Chelsea in 1997.”

And his Wikipedia page has already been updated to show him with the Galaxy, so it has to be true, right?

For those who are wondering, Celestine WHO?, here’s a bit of info.

First and most important, he has not yet hit the magic three-oh. He’s twenty-nine till August. (I read somewhere that it is important to Ruud that the team not bring in older players. In my book, this is a point in Ruud’s favor.) Celestine was a Nigerian international between 1995 and 2004. He’s played at Anderlecht, Chelsea and Newcastle. It looks like his position of choice is left-back. (Which doesn’t look good for Mike Randolph, unless we move Mike up to left mid?)

The bad news is that one of the reasons he was let go from Newcastle was due to injury problems. Let’s hope they’re in the past, because if there’s one thing we don’t need it’s more injury problems.

And last but not least, I will cheerfull steal for you this fun Babayaro video from MLS Rumors.

Some Related Galaxy Posts:

Category: Player News, Preparing for 2008, Transfer Rumors

« Landon Breaks the Record! Kind of. Maybe. | Home | Ngwenya Heads Abroad »

j

You are welcome, I just really love our team, so I try and find out everything I can on them. I can not wait for the season to start you will see us (Angel City Brigade) in the GA section every home game. If anyone is interested in joining us in the GA section, just go to www.angelcitybrigade.com and jump on the forum and let us know, get our ticket rep info. Season seats are only $380 if you are in ACB group. It really cant get any better than that.
Later,
J
Laurie

J, you're my newest hero. :-)
j

Found this info on big soccer there were many other posts about this topic on there but this one looked right with the cap figs so thank you pc4th for the hard work looking these up.

Salary Cap: $2,300,000
Allocation Money: $800,000
Total: $3,100,000

Current players (26): Salary figures from 2007

23 MF David Beckham ($400,000)
XX FW Carlos Ruiz ($400,000)
10 FW Landon Donovan ($400,000)
XX DF Celestine Babayaro (????)
7 MF Chris Klein ($180,000)
17 DF Abel Xavier ($156,000)
14 FW Edson Buddle ($140,000)
8 MF Peter Vagenas ($131,250)
4 DF Ante Jazic ($106,000)

Assume Babyaro makes around 300,000 a year. The above 9 players take up $2.2 mil, leaving around $0.9 mil for 9 other players. 10 Developmental players are not counted toward the cap.

22 DF Kelly Gray ($85,000)
15 MF Quavas Kirk ($75,000)
18 MF Kyle Martino ($52,500)
11 FW Israel Sesay ($45,000)

1 GK Steve Cronin ($34,700)
2 DF Mike Randolph ($17,700)
3 DF Ty Harden ($17,700)
6 MF Kevin Harmse ($40,800)
12 DF Troy Roberts ($30,000)
19 MF Josh Tudela ($30,000)
21 FW Alan Gordon ($30,000)

+ 6 drafted players
+ 2 other players to make 28 players total.

Sean Franklin Drafted 4th overall in 2008 MLS Superdraft
Ely Allen Drafted 21st overall in 2008 MLS Superdraft
Julian Valentin Drafted 29th overall in 2008 MLS Superdraft
Matt Allen Drafted 34th overall in 2008 MLS Superdraft
Brandon McDonald Drafted 46th overall in 2008 MLS Superdraft
Matt Hatzke Drafted 51st overall in 2008 MLS Superdraft

Also, the salary numbers are from 2007 season, so it will be different for 2008 season.

Quote:
Quote:
"We've picked up almost $800,000 in allocation money since the end of the season," said LA director of soccer Paul Bravo. "So we have some money to go out and do some things that better balance our group. Maybe I shouldn't have given you the dollar amount, but it is what it is. You need to be able to do that in order to do the things that Ruud wants to do."
bluemeanies

The collective bargaining agreement guarantees a certain number of weeks downtime after the season. I think its between 2 and 3 months and when DC and Houston wanted to start training earlier last season to prepare for the Concacaf Champions Cup they needed players union permission to train for part of that time (and agreed to intersperce it into the season). I could see this being something the union would be willing to drastically reduce in exchange for, say, abolishing the developmental roster and adding ten spots to the senior roster. Players are responcible for their own fitness in the downtime.
Diane

Sorry: Cobi...as long as the season doesn't rest on my spelling...blushing DEEPLY!
Diane

JustJack, I don't think MLS teams do have organized training off season. Barring that, Beckham's training with Arsenal because its near his house--where his kids/family are spending the school holidays. (Plus, who wouldn't want to train with Wenger--and his nifty group of kids!)

Babayaro is a smart player who has given my EPL club trouble when he was fit, but I guess motivation was as much a worry as his health at Newcastle(?).

Gullit didn't come to LA for the money, he's been lucratively employed since he left football. Since both he and Coby were fiercely competitive players I have to think they would be the same on the sidelines. So I can't imagine them being careless about any of their personnel decisions...wrong maybe, but we'll have to wait and see there I guess. My hopes for the team really rest on my optimism about this coaching staff...hope I'M not wrong!
j

He was at the combine for the first two days, he had a list of guys he wanted and we did get the three he wanted, according to our website so not sure what your worried about.
CentralCoaster

JustJack, the EPL basically has no offseason. Its about 3 weeks off before they start preseason training and tours of Asia or North America.

I am very dissapointed to hear about Ruud's lack of interest in the Combine and the draft. Not a good sign. If he's getting paid that much, he should at least pretend to care.
JustJack

When I heard about Babayaro's signing, the very first thought I had was, OMG, we've become that place where aging or wounded EPL players come to die!

And the comment about Ruud not showing up for the Superdraft... dunno. All I do know is, why is Becks having to train with Arsenal? Doesn't the Galaxy train off-season? I was under the impression pro atheletes train all the time, they surely do for Premiership clubs (admittedly there's a differing regime during the summer break but it's pretty intensive nontheless). Dammit, if those guys aren't in training, all the fancy-pants players on the roster aren't going to matter a damn in terms of a winning season.

And they surely won't matter if we have a roster of ex-EPL players who came here to die. Game-over, man.
Chris

Can't be true...he's under 30!!
Melissa

I didn't mean for my previous comment to be negatory, I just wanted to get reactions from Gals fans. I think I'm pretty good at picking out sarcasm (and theoffsiderules is full of it for sure) but I feel very strongly that sf is not dishing it out with this one -- he's being dead serious.

As for the supplemental draft, yeah - it may wind up just like the last waiver draft and I dunno if I can handle that kind of let down so soon.
Ronny

"We've picked up almost $800, 000 in allocation money since the end of the season, " said LA director of soccer Paul Bravo. "So we have some money to go out and do some things that better balance our group. Maybe I shouldn't have given you the dollar amount, but it is what it is. You need to be able to do that in order to do the things that Ruud wants to do."
http://la.galaxy.mlsnet.com/ne...

And you silly wabbits thought we were out of money!
Laurie

j, do you have a source for the $800,000 figure? I've been trying to figure out how much allocation money we have with little success.
Laurie

Melissa, here's my thought on the Supplemental Draft: Supplemental draftees are like chickens. It's dangerous to give them names, because then you get all attached, and the next thing you know their little heads are rolling in the dirt and your heart is broken.

So, in a word: No.
j

Well we have $800,000 ally cash to spend so Im guessing that is where its coming from and the reason Guillit left early from what I read earlier was he had seen enough and we got the three guys he wanted so not sure where you are going with that one.
KK

How are they going to pay him, Ruiz, Landycakes, Beckham, Babayaro and the rest of the squad? I'm guessing he's going to take serious pay cut if they will pay him Chris Albright type money.
Melissa

This is a bit off-topic but what do you all think about this recent comment from sf at theoffsiderules on the SuperDraft?

How serious is "sexy" new LA skipper Ruud Gullit taking his job? He only spent one day at the combine and I'm told most of it was spent speaking Dutch to Thomas Rongen. If that isn't concerning enough, guy couldn't even be bothered to show up for the draft. Now Galaxy fans let me ask you a question: how comfortable would you be on a plane where the pilot didn't do his pre-flight check his plane before takeoff?

Yeah, I'm going html tag happy these days.

Laurie, will you be live blogging Thursday's supplemental draft as well (ha ha)?
Frank

Although I'm excited by his apparent signing. His injury history is here.....

http://www.physioroom.com/news...

I can only hope that he has left the injury bug behind him. I guess we'll see.