The newspapers’ front page photograph of David and Victoria Beckham entering Buckingham Palace’s State Dining Room was a publicity triumph for England’s global icon. Beaming with pride, Posh – wearing one of her own designs – and Beckham in a specially tailored white tie and tails – had worked hard to secure the invitation last December to King Charles’s dinner in honour of the ruler of Qatar.
Alex Ferguson had spotted Beckham’s weaknesses
As the photographs revealed the King’s surprise guests, it was reported that the monarch was certain to propose a knighthood for Beckham. The tabloids’ headlines “Make it ‘Sir Becks” relaunched the bandwagon. Surely, no one could deny that Goldenballs, England’s glorious footballer, dedicated ambassador for charities and loyal monarchist, deserved that honour?
Actually, they could – and they did in 2011, when Beckham’s nomination for a knighthood was outrightly rejected by the honours committee. Despite the certainty of his sponsor Sebastian Coe, being an iconic brand and passionate Englishman did not qualify Beckham for a knighthood. ‘You’ve done everything that’s been asked of you,’ Coe had told Beckham after helping to secure the Olympics for London. To underline his exceptional qualifications, Beckham had visited British troops in Afghanistan, supported charities and signed football shirts for young cancer sufferers.
For the honours’ committee, however, Beckham’s dedication to charity was less important than the veto signalled by the Inland Revenue, HMRC.
The public would subsequently discover that Beckham had joined a supposedly legal tax avoidance scheme organised by Ingenious Films. The average saving for each of the 697 members of the scheme in the first year had been about £200,000. In HMRC’s opinion, Ingenious’s investors were involved in ‘aggressive tax avoidance’ which was in retrospect outlawed. Beckham’s partnership in Ingenious Media’s tax structures classified him as a tax dodger.
But unknown to the public, Beckham’s use of the Ingenious tax avoidance scheme was, as the honours’ committee discovered, just the tip of the iceberg.
To research Beckham’s finances for my book The House of Beckham, I employed a hugely experienced forensic accountant. During nearly 300 hours work, he combed through the last 21 years of Beckham’s bewilderingly complicated corporate structure for all his operations.
In his 48-year-career, the accountant reported, he had never examined any accounts as brazenly dedicated to confuse HMRC, albeit legally. Beckham’s football and branding income was channelled through a succession of ever-changing companies. Every year’s accounts revealed inter-company trading of loans, cash, share issues and payments. Those internal transactions left threads that were difficult even for specialists to follow, not least because the various companies’ financial years ended at different dates.
Beckham’s tax advisers completed a series of complicated manoeuvres to restructure his business, casting another legal smokescreen over his finances. Not least when he played football in Spain, America, Italy and France and became a non-dom, not liable to pay British taxes on foreign earnings.
Over the years, his companies incurred fines for late submission of the statutory returns and were even threatened by the regulator at Companies House with being struck off or closed down unless required paperwork was filed. Nearly every year his accountants corrected the previous year’s accounts.
As England’s captain, Beckham was uncommunicative, isolated and ungenerous
Naturally, before publishing the book, I put all those discoveries and conclusions to Beckham’s representatives. None of them were rejected, though a representative for Beckham said that Beckham had paid all the required taxes in the relevant jurisdictions and that his tax practices were lawful. The spokesman added the complexity in the accounts were all standard accounting practice, and the adjustments needed were due to late invoices.
Beckham’s controversial tax affairs were certainly sufficient to bar him from a knighthood. But surely that was outweighed by being a football genius and England’s outstanding captain who scored many phenomenal goals not least against Greece in 2001?
Scoring outstanding goals has never justified a knighthood. Since 1949, only a handful of English players have received the honour, including Bobby Charlton, Bobby Robson and Stanley Matthews. Compared to those giants, Beckham’s football record was not as outstanding as many believe.
In 2001, Beckham was a stunningly handsome, magical player, adored across the world. But Manchester United’s manager, Alex Ferguson had spotted his weaknesses. Focused on selling his brand and enjoying his hectic social life, his football skills were declining. Ferguson was looking for a buyer.
There were many potential suitors. His value to England’s Football Association and subsequently Real Madrid and LA Galaxy was his magnetic appeal to fans.
Not only did he fill stadiums in expectation of a brilliant goal, but he sold thousands of shirts. Made for a pittance, they sold for up to £80 each. The profits for the clubs of Beckham’s numbered shirt were huge. But, they discovered, his performance on the pitch, was patchy at best, and often abysmal.
As England’s captain, Beckham was uncommunicative, isolated and ungenerous. Over six years, Beckham led England to humiliating defeats. In September 2005, playing Northern Ireland, who ranked 116 in the world, England were defeated 1-0, for the first time since 1972. Before the match, Beckham reportedly booked a manicure. During the match, his desultory shots all missed the target, and, as captain, he failed to rally the team.
Jeff Powell of the Daily Mail wrote for the majority after the 2006 World Cup: ‘The most disgracefully unprepared team in England’s World Cup history was captained by a narcissist so obsessed with himself that when the inevitable humiliation came he cried for himself, not his country.’
The statistics exposed Beckham’s shortcomings. He scored only 17 goals for England in 115 internationals, despite taking most of the free kicks and penalties. In his career, he scored 144 goals which included 65 from direct free kicks. His midfielder contemporary Frank Lampard would score during his career 29 goals for England and 274 club goals – and rarely took the free kicks.
But Beckham, who turns 50 in May, did score an English record for the most number of yellow cards: no fewer than 149, and eight red cards. That delinquency mirrored the same crude anger he expressed in his private communication when he was refused a knighthood. The honours committee, Beckham emailed to his publicity chief in 2013, were ‘unappreciative’ and ‘a bunch of cunts’. The public and private Beckham are different characters. Nothing has changed to reconsider a knighthood now.
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