This is the rumor bouncing around the internet: Landon Donovan will go to French club Paris St-Germain, based here in the capital of France.

The rumor originated from something called 10sport, a French site that a few days ago reported that PSG is in negotiations with Donovan (or, presumably, his agent, Richard Motzkin) to secure the Los Angeles Galaxy forward’s services — either for three months or so during the Major League Soccer offseason, or as a straight transfer.

So, I thought I would ask Landon myself. “Any truth to the rumor,” I asked him, via e-mail.

Landon replied last night.

“No comment,” he said.

I’m trying to remember what “no comment” means when Landon uses it. (And he rarely uses it.) I think it tends to mean “you’re onto something but I can’t say anything about it.”

I believe he no-commented me in 2005, just before the March qualifying match at Mexico City, when the rumor of his joining the Galaxy and MLS on a transfer from Bayer Leverkusen was going around hot and heavy.

As you may recall, Donovan was transferred from Leverkusen to the Galaxy within, like, a week. So …

I believe this has more of a chance of happening than the Livorno/Serie A rumor that was going around back in July.

From Donovan’s perspective, PSG has to be far more attractive.

Livorno is in a more prestigious league than is PSG; France’s Ligue 1 is (at best) the fifth-best league in Europe, significantly behind the leagues in England, Spain, Italy and Germany, and arguably behind Turkey, too.

But Livorno figures to struggle in Serie A, while PSG is a contender in France.

And then there is the matter of location, location, location.

Livorno (still sometimes known as Leghorn, in English) is a semi-dreary port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It’s in Tuscany, but it’s not in the heart of Tuscany like, say, Florence or Siena.

Paris … is, well, Paris, and in his very brief e-mail Landon described it as an “amazing city.” No one would argue that. The idea of getting paid to live and work here … well, that’s mighty attractive.

There may not be such a thing as a “Donovan brand” yet, certainly not like “Brand Beckham” that the Galaxy bought into two years ago. But exposure in the City of Light couldn’t hurt Donovan. At all.

He speaks German and what he calls “soccer Spanish” … but I don’t think he speaks any French, and the PSG team is made up mostly of French nationals,  even if many of them are of recent African origin. The coach, Antoine Kambouare, is from New Caledonia, a French possession in the South Pacific.

But soccer is soccer, and language isn’t a major impediment, on the field.

PSG is an interesting club, with a lot of history, and not all of it good. It has a reputation for attracting race-baiting fans who like to fight. It may have one of the rougher fan bases in France, actually. But the club appears to be on an upswing (it’s 2-0-1 after three matches), and Donovan could be part of that.

The club’s best-known players are Claude Makelele,  a French international, defensive midfielder and the captain; and 5-foot-5 winger Ludovic Giuly.

In its first three matches, PSG has used nearly the same lineup throughout, starting 10 players in all three matches.

Where would Landon fit in here? Because, unlike, say, Bayern Munich, where Landon spent the winter earlier this year, he probably would come here expecting to play, providing he is healthy and in form, of course. After all, this is a lower-level league than Germany’s and Landon, at 27, is in his prime and is, arguably, the best field player ever to come out of the U.S.

So, if he plays here, it would have to be at the expense of someone at midfield or at forward.

PSG’s forwards, so far, have been Mevlut Erding, a 22-year-old Turk who just joined the club and has two goals, and Peguy Luyindula, a 30-year-old native of Congo who has one goal. And the other midfield regulars, at the moment, are Stephane Sessegnon, a playmaker from Benin, and Jeremy Clement, a French native who tends to play on the left side and is known more for his defense than scoring.

Just looking at age and form, the guess would be that Donovan might contest for playing time with Luyindula, who has 13 goals in 70 appearances for PSG, which isn’t bad, but isn’t tearing up the league, either. Or, if Donovan is used as a winger, as he has been with the national team, of late, maybe he pushes Clement, a smallish speed guy, as Donovan is.

Anyway, I wonder how anyone can pay attention to the game while living in Paris. That has to be a test for every player in the team. But maybe it wouldn’t be any more of a distraction than is playing with David Beckham.

The other thought I shared with Landon is the sense that Paris doesn’t seem particularly in love with PSG. (Actually, Paris seems too grand and cosmopolitan for anything as common and grubby as professional sports; this may be the least sports-conscious city on the planet.)

PSG seems to have a fairly muted local presence. I haven’t checked lately, but a few years ago the club had a merchandise store on the Champs Elysees, but other than that … I haven’t seen, while out and around here for three weeks, any advertising or promotional material trying to sell the team or its stadium, Parc des Princes, which sits in a working-class neighborhood in the southwest corner of the city.

The club drew an estimated 30,000 for its home opener, against LeMans, which is well short of a sellout. So …

Another aspect of this, a complicating factor, is whether Donovan goes to Paris on a loan or on a straight transfer.  He told me, after coming back from Bayern in March, that he thought he would be returning to Europe, and seemed to prefer the idea of a straight transfer (a full-time switch, that is) … but he was concerned that MLS would not let him go. He is almost finished with the fifth year of his five-year contract with the Galaxy/MLS, but … the club/league hold two seasons’ worth of options. Effectively controlling his movements through late 2011, that is.

To date, the impression created is that MLS feels as if it needs the best-known American player … and has set an unrealistically high transfer fee for him. (Someone who knows the situation well said they “can’t imagine” MLS letting Landon go for anything short of a huge chunk of money). And failing an outright transfer, it’s difficult for a player (any player) to make an impact on a three-month loan.

So, yes, lots of ducks that have to be lined up in a row for this to work out.

Anyway, this is a fun rumor. I believe Ligue 1 is a better fit than Italy (and certainly better than Germany) for a player of Donovan’s size, style and panache. And even if things go badly … at the end of the day (or the end of the night) you’re still in Paris.

We’ll see how this turns out. And I may go take a look at PSG next Saturday, when they play at home against Lille. See what Landon might be in for.