Beckham noted that Villarreal of Spain recently paid a $10 million transfer to acquire the rights to Red Bulls teenage striker Jozy Altidore. He also believes that MLS teams will attract more players from Europe soon.

Red Bulls coach Juan Carlos Osorio said that MLS will continue to advance as long as clubs build new stadiums and change rules to allow teams to pay more for quality players.

"If the teams are allowed to spend a little more money, the markets that we can look for players will be different markets," Osorio said. "At the moment, we have to accept that we can't look at the European markets, and if we do, we can only look at players who are over 31 and 32 years old. That limits the players we can target and concentrate on."