It has never been easy knowing what to believe in the David Beckham-Real Madrid saga — from the first moment when Florentino Pérez, the Real president at the time, said “no, no, no, we will not be signing David Beckham” days before making the then England captain his fifth galáctico in 2003.

Beckham joined Luis Figo, Zinédine Zidane, Raúl and Ronaldo at the world’s self-proclaimed biggest club, where he would not only play for them but earn them millions courtesy of an agreement to share his image rights 50-50, offering half the profits from all his new commercial deals to the club.

At the time, Pérez promised Beckham a greater share of those rights when he came to renew his deal. Three years on, and with Pérez no longer president, negotiations to renew Beckham’s contract began midway through last season but were derailed by the boardroom chaos that the departing president had left in his wake.

At the start of this season Ramón Calderón, the newly elected president, promised to meet Beckham and ensure that he stayed at Real for the rest of his career. Pedrag Mijatovic, the sporting director, echoed those sentiments and Fabio Capello, the coach, added his approval. But it was clear from the off that the new regime would be renewing Beckham’s contract on their own terms.

The new board had to please those at the club who did not want to lose Beckham’s unmatched ability to earn the club money — sponsorship deals bring in about £13 million a year, a sum that easily covers his £5 million-a-year wages. But others at the club were demanding a return to concentrating on building a winning team.

With a view to keeping both sides happy, Calderón’s regime offered Beckham two more years but did not improve the percentage of his image rights. Their position was supported on the field by Capello, who dropped the 31-year-old three matches into the new season.

The Beckham camp refused to accept the offer. The subsequent stalemate has been broken partly by Real’s realisation that they will lose their cash cow for nothing in the summer and a drastic downturn in form on the pitch. Three defeats in four matches have left them slipping out of the title race.

The new regime is under pressure and dealing with the lingering “Beckham problem” would appease angry fans demanding change. That urgency was reflected by Mijatovic telling Beckham this week that he had to decide now whether or not he wanted to stay.

That appeared to have become a full-scale withdrawal of the existing deal yesterday, when Mijatovic was mistranslated as having said Beckham would not be staying at Real. Despite the eventual linguistic ironing-out of Mijatovic’s comments, Real’s sudden reluctance to let the Beckham contract saga drag on is telling.

He was left out of the squad for football reasons yesterday for the first time since his £22 million transfer 3½ seasons ago, as was Ronaldo. The two of them are the last remaining legacy of the galáctico era.

Calderón faces a battle to stay in his position at the end of the month, when a court will rule on the legitimacy of his presidency — his rivals say that a decision not to count postal votes in the election was illegal. He needs to convince fans that he heralds a new dawn. Getting rid of all reminders of the previous regime will help.

Had results not been so bad, such a bold statement might not be necessary, but with another season of failure looming, it definitely is.

Ronaldo, the subject of a €20 million (£13.4 million) bid by Al-Ittihad, the Saudi Arabian club, will probably leave. Today’s meeting between the club and Beckham’s representatives should go a long way to clarifying whether the former England captain’s head will roll, too.

Numbers game

237 League matches Beckham started for Manchester United, 1995-2003

62 League games started for Real Madrid, 2003-present

78 Percentage of matches started for United

47 Percentage of games started for Real

62 Goals for United, a rate of one every 4.85 league matches

7 Goals for Real, a rate of one every nine league matches

9 Significant titles won with United

0 Significant honours with Real

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