English Premier League

David Beckham may not be returning to the English Premier League, but that doesn't mean the league has seen the last of his family. The former captain of the English national team, who retired from Major League Soccer following the Galaxy's MLS Cup victory last month, has moved his family back to London where his 13-year-old son, Brooklyn, trained Tuesday with Chelsea's youth academy players. When the Beckhams lived in L.A., Brooklyn played in the Galaxy's youth academy program.

Responding to calls by England Coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, who argued that a midseason hiatus would benefit not only the clubs but also the national team, English Premier League executives Wednesday voted in favor of a two-week break in January starting next season. The plan, which is experimental for two seasons, is contingent upon balancing the league schedule without disrupting the various competitions in which clubs are involved.

Friday's tragic events in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at an elementary school, was marked around the soccer world this weekend with several teams paying tribute to the victims. In the English Premier League, four teams -- Queens Park Rangers, Fulham, Aston Villa and Liverpool -- wore armbands in remembrance of those who died. Liverpool and Aston Villa have American owners, which may have influenced their decisions. But the players on Queens Park Rangers decided among themselves to wear the black armbands.

Video: Suarez bites Ivanovic? Liverpool striker Luis Suarez apologized for biting Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic on Sunday during their English Premier League game. The 26-year-old from Uruguay was clearly seen grabbing and biting the arm of Ivanovic after he cleared the ball from Suarez just outside the penalty box. Ivanovic immediately complained after the two tumbled to the pitch, but referee Kevin Friend did not see the incident and no penalty was called. Suarez eventually scored seven minutes into stoppage time to help Liverpool earn a 2-2 draw.

The United States' under-23 team had plenty of chances to score. Georgie Wilson Welcome of Honduras was the only one who did. Welcome beat keeper Dominic Cervi in the 103rd minute with a kick to the top right corner of the net, and Honduras held on for a 1-0 overtime victory Sunday in the CONCACAF men's Olympic qualifying tournament championship game at Nashville. The U.S. kept trying to tie, but Honduras kept clearing the ball. Sacha Kljestan had a chance only to kick the ball just over the goal from just outside the penalty box. Both finalists already clinched what really mattered in this tournament, and Olympic berth, in the semifinals Thursday night.

Brian McBride beat former U.S. teammate Tim Howard with a 67th-minute header Sunday in London, and Fulham used all five of its American players in a game for the first time in defeating visiting Everton, 1-0, in the English Premier League. It most likely was the first time five Americans played for one team in a Premier League match and six appeared in one game. McBride, Fulham's captain, started along with goalkeeper Kasey Keller and Eddie Johnson. Defender Carlos Bocanegra entered in the 74th minute and Clint Dempsey replaced McBride in the 88th.

The Galaxy invited season-ticket holders to a lunch-time news conference Wednesday and many fans expected the team to announce that forward Landon Donovan would be leaving for the English Premier League. Instead, the team announced its captain and leading scorer had signed a four-year contract that would keep him in Los Angeles through 2013. "Thank you, Landon!" one fan shouted at Donovan, who responded with a shy grin. And Donovan had reason to smile -- millions of them -- since the value of his contract more than doubles the $900,000 base salary he got from the Galaxy last season, when he led it to the Major League Soccer championship game and was selected the league's most valuable player.

If the Russian metal magnate Mikhail Prokhorov's bid for 80% of the New Jersey Nets seems landmark for its foreignness, just gaze at the motherland. In a United Kingdom whose churning internationalism can make the United States seem cloistered by contrast, foreign ownership of the 20 soccer clubs in the globally towering English Premier League has reached quite a juncture: half. "I'm almost losing track," said Michael Brunskill of the watchdog group Football Supporters' Federation.

Too much money concentrated in too few hands could spell the death of soccer, Gerhard Aigner, the retiring chief executive of UEFA, told a German newspaper Sunday. "We have a dangerous situation, because it should not be that success is only possible with money," Aigner told Welt am Sonntag. "If that ... remains the case, then football will lose credibility and fascination. "Sport needs competition [and] interesting opponents, otherwise boredom sets in and no one wants to come to the games anymore.

The Zen Master needs to start channeling Pat Riley and get through to his soft-as-Charmin Lakers that unless they rebound the basketball like they own it, there are two chances his team will beat the Celtics in this series: slim and none . . . and slim is blocking out. Howard Cohen North Hills After the award-winning dive, being carried off the court by fellow teammates, and subsequent jogging back out of the locker room minutes later, Paul...