Perhaps his royal treatment will trickle down to MLS players, Conrad says.

Question: How did you feel when David Beckham was signed for so much money?

Jimmy Conrad: Yeah, the mammoth salary is interesting. I think he makes more brushing his teeth in the morning than I do for the whole year so that is quite funny actually but I respect that he is coming over and taking a chance, he is lending his name and his reputation to an upstart league, and I have a lot of respect for him in that course, it is not to hard to respect how much money he is earning for that jump, so I don’t know how much risk it is but I think that it is just going to be a positive ripple effect obviously, now we have become a water cooler topic, just having him in the league is got people talking about our league coming out to see what it is all about, you still are going to have your haters and that goes, that comes with the territory but ultimately I think it is a good thing, it is going to benefit not only the owners, the media coverage but I think the players, I think you are going to have more kids excited about wanting to play having the chance to play in the league, that Beckham did play for the team that Beckham did, just perception wise, it is going to be very-very positive and ultimately I think from a player’s perspective you know it should enhance our salaries when our collective and bargaining agreement comes up, it gives us a little bit more power and club to kind of start asking for what he is asking for, when he comes in because in because the players in Los Angeles they get to see what he gets and he gets the red carpet treatment and when he comes to Kansas city they treat him with red carpet treatment, that means it is like what is all this, you just can’t believe that they can do that and they are willing to do it but then when it comes us they don’t, and so that is going to be an interesting perspective that something we can carry with us as players as we try to, right now we are still on the shoulders of the class for us and so, we want to be a little bit taller and little bit broader, so we put the things in place so that the next generation of players can really benefit from his influence in the way where you know we took advantage of everything that was being offered to him and making sure we got treated the same way.

Question: Do you think there are more stars like this in the pipeline?

Jimmy Conrad: Well I think there is only one Beckham, I think he is so global that, and I think there is only a sort of Ronaldhino,and may be Massei and Christiano Ronaldo from Manchester United, I mean I sort of those three or four guys, I don’t know if anybody could have the impact that David Beckham's had, however there are a lot of guys like Louis Figo and couple of other guys that are have been linked to Ronaldo being another one that have been linked to coming over here and as excited is that be and we are just Claudio Lopez to Kansas city just recently and he has played in two world cups and have lot of experience in and I think he is going to be great for our team, I think really though when our league takes off we will start signing these guys at a younger age as opposed to getting them when they have only got maybe two or three years left in the tank, we may be got them when you know 7, 8 years left and can really contribute at a higher level, now these guys that we have got in are good and they are going to be very good for our league, I think Juan Pablo Helen from New York has been a revelation in just in terms of his professionalism and everything he is brought for the game so, that is how we made a lot of good signings last year bringing in, not only those big name guys Beckham, Blonco, Onhow but also bringing in some guys that you probably haven’t heard of Vontohan and Garrio Recarde and Allis and just good young guys that have come in and respected the league I think, we have made signings in the past with the big names but they don’t, they all come over here and they are like on vacation and so, the leagues changing it is changing for the better and for me personally it is very exciting to be part of it from where it was in to where it is now and where it is going.

Recorded On: 3/24/08