David Beckham has only played once at Old Trafford in an opponent\u2019s shirt since he left Manchester United where he began the extraordinary career which has turned him into the most marketable footballer in the world. He was received with extraordinary warmth by the fans of his old club when he came on to play for AC Milan.\u00a0 At the end of the match Beckham reciprocated with one of the big gestures which have characterised his long and shrewd career.<\/p>\n
He bent down to pick up a United scarf thrown to him on the pitch. It was not the usual red and white. It was green and gold \u2013 the colours of the fans\u2019 protest movement against United\u2019s American owners, the Glazers, who have saddled the club with \u00a3600m of Glazer family debts. Beckham innocently draped the scarf around his neck, to a delighted uproar from the fans. When the press later asked him about it he shrugged and replied, with faux-naivet\u00e9 (he\u2019d better start learning a bit of French) that protests were not his business.<\/p>\n
David Beckham has long been the master of the grand gesture, as we saw when he signed for the latest of his illustrious international clubs. After Manchester, Madrid, Los Angeles and Milan \u2013 the list makes him sound like an upmarket shopping chain, which is what, in a way, he is \u2013 he pitched up last week in Paris to join another mega-club. And the first thing he did was announce that he would be giving away his \u00a34m PSG salary to a French children\u2019s charity.<\/p>\n
It was a move of extraordinary deftness. Just as the actor G\u00e9rard Depardieu is quitting France because of its new 75 per cent tax rate another international celebrity arrives in Paris and makes a far nobler move. \u00a0Little was said about the fact that his massive commercial spin-off earnings will only be taxed at 30 per cent. At LA Galaxy only $6m of Beckham\u2019s $46m annual income came in salary; the rest was from sponsorship, sales, image rights and other deals.<\/p>\n
Beckham is no fool. He knows that the Qatari oil billionaires who own PSG are buying him as part of a strategy to turn the tiny emirate into a sporting and entertainment giant. \u201cI don\u2019t see this as a short-term project,\u201d he said of his publicly-announced five month contract. \u201cI consider myself part of this project\u2026 helping the club become one of the biggest powerhouses in football.\u201d\u00a0 And he won\u2019t be doing that for charity.<\/p>\n
Yet only the curmudgeonly would begrudge this. That is part of Beckham\u2019s immense charm and skill. It is only one of a succession of paradoxes about the world\u2019s most famous footballer. They enable some to characterise him as a washed-up, self-aggrandising, self-indulgent, over-groomed footballing chav with ghastly inked-arms \u2013 and others to see him as a role model father, ambassador royal and national hero with his shy smile and modest good manners.<\/p>\n
Far from everything which is said about David Beckham is true but there are apparent contradictions deep within his persona. As a footballer he brought disgrace with a petulant kick which saw him sent off and England crash out of the 1998 World Cup \u00a0and yet he was transformed from villain to hero when with the last kick of the game he scored the goal that allowed England to qualify for the World Cup next time.<\/p>\n
As a fashion icon he manages to be simultaneously naff and stylish. The man who sat with his Posh Spice wife, Victoria, on a golden throne at his wedding in an Irish castle, and whose home was dubbed Beckingham Palace, is a figure who looks good in anything, from a sharp suit to a naked oiled birthday one. He is \u201cone of the world\u2019s most handsome men,\u201d said the editor of Elle<\/em>, \u201cloved by men and women alike\u201d.<\/p>\n Beckham\u2019s image is both straight and gay. The word \u201cmeterosexual\u201d was coined for Beckham who also happily posed for the gay magazine Attitude<\/em>. In the tough macho world of British football he was the man who unashamedly wore sarongs, pink nail polish and panties belonging to his wife. \u201cHe was a fantastic lad till he got married,\u201d Man Utd\u2019s manager Fergie once muttered.<\/p>\n Beckham is a shy show-off. \u00a0He has the bashful smile and downward eye glances of Lady Diana. And yet this modest narcissist loves being looked at. That can be seen from his formative years \u2013 his introverted ex-team mate Paul Scholes in his autobiography accused Beckham of hogging the limelight at every goal celebration \u2013 to last year\u2019s speedboat race up the Thames carrying the Olympic torch looking like a dapper James Bond with an ironic smile playing across his lips \u2013 a sexy little smirk one woman called it.<\/p>\n Yet his moisturised male vanity is offset by the vigour of his tattoos, more than 20 in total, including a gruesome fascistic eagle on his neck. Beckham speaks of this body boorishness with tenderness as he explains that most of them are tributes to his family: \u201cWhen you see the tattoos you see an expression of how I feel about Victoria and the boys. They\u2019re part of me.\u201d It\u2019s another Beckham ambiguity. He wears his deep love for his family as if it were a fashion accessory.<\/p>\n Another contradiction: he is self-focused and selfless. Beckham suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder to such a degree that all the cans of Coke in his fridge have to be turned with their labels facing the same way. \u00a0But he has an extraordinary selflessness too. When a torn Achilles tendon took him out of the 2010 World Cup he did not sulk but accompanied England as team mediator. When, after working so hard to secure the 2012 Olympics, he was omitted from the British squad he carried on cheerfully in supporting roles. He visits troops in war zones and works for Aids and malaria charities.<\/p>\n For years a running media gag is that Beckham, the son of a kitchen-fitter, is a bit of a fool. Watch his most recent interviews on French tv and you will see the lie in that. Behind the Chingford accent and the plain words is a keen intelligence, an intuitive diplomacy as well as a natural grace.<\/em> David Beckham is a man for the paradoxes of our time.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Beckham has only played once at Old Trafford in an opponent\u2019s shirt since he left Manchester United where he began the extraordinary career which has turned him into the most marketable footballer in the world. He was received with extraordinary warmth by the fans of his old club when he came on to play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,551,38],"tags":[631,81,93,632],"class_list":["post-7376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-manchester","category-media-society","category-society","tag-david-beckham","tag-football","tag-manchester-united","tag-paris-saint-germain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7376"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7380,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376\/revisions\/7380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}