When David Beckham debuted with Manchester United, on September 23, 1992, luck did not accompany him. The team tied after a bad game and, although according to the press of the time, its presence during the last 18 minutes of the match was correct, it did not predict the success that would later make the British a football legend. At 50, who turns this Friday, May 2, that boy from London of humble origins is a sports institution and little remains to be told of who, in addition, has maintained his popularity and almost immutable media interest for decades. The former player has remained linked to football since his retirement 12 years ago, but has managed to diversify his businesses and reinvent himself to such an extent that he will soon make his leap to television as presenter. As he shared on his Instagram profile a few days ago, this May 6 will premiere the Beckham and Friends program in the US chain Paramount+, a relaxed format where he will be accompanied by different personalities of the cinema, the kitchen and, of course, of football, to see the last games of the Champions League championship. «I love to see the games and I like to see them in a certain way and it is with my children or with my friends. It will be something of the style, where we will sit down to see it, we will comment with friends and talk about the game, although not only of that,» he said during the promotion of the format. More information in the first program of Beckham and Friends, available only in the United States and the United Kingdom, will coincide with the semifinal of the Champions League between Inter Milan and Barcelona and, a day later, with the encounter between the PSG and the Arsenal, so in a matter of days he can demonstrate whether his facet of the presenter is as good as that of athlete. Or that of an entrepreneur, because Beckham is a machine to generate money and is the visible face of his most profitable business: his personal image. David Beckham in the recordings of an advertisement, in 1998.Shaun Botterill (Getty Images)
The footballer who became a celebrity
According to The Guardian newspaper in an article published last December, in 2024 Beckham received 28 million pounds in dividends from his personal brand (about 32.8 million euros). According to the publication, in 2022 he sold 55% of his businesses to Authentic Brands, the American firm who owns the image rights of Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley. And he has not only managed to make history in the football field, his name unleashed a fan phenomenon that transcended the sport and that, for the moment, has not repeated himself again. The fashion world phagocitated as soon as that Beckhammania could, in turn feeding the interest in the British among those who had never seen a football match. Precisely, a good part of their current advertising continue to come from their fashion campaigns, such as those made with brands such as Adidas or Boss in recent months. Of course, before becoming an almost planetary star, he faced bitter episodes on the pitch. How to forget the wave of hate suffered in 1998, when he was expelled in the quarterfinal match of the World Cup in England, leaving the team with one less player. The selection was eliminated in the penalties and some fans held him responsible for the defeat. In Beckham, the successful documentary series that premiered in Netflix in 2023 about his figure, his wife Victoria Beckham was blunt and said that her husband was «clinically depressed» after the attacks. In a conversation in 2020 with Prince Guillermo about mental health, Beckham had also alluded to that episode: “I made an error in 1998 and the reaction at that time was quite brutal (…). I had support from Manchester United and obviously from my family. But, at that time I felt that it was necessary to go to someone and ask for help? deal with it myself.
David and Victoria Beckham at the Mobo Awards, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, on October 6, 1999. Dave Hogan (Getty Images) outside the countryside, his personal life also became the subject of conversation. The relationship with Victoria, with whom it began to leave in 1997 in the middle of the Spice Girls, unleashed the interest of the British tabloids, known for their harassment and demolition techniques. His face occupied covers of the pink chronicle and sports newspapers equally and these two universes intermingled when some voices, including Sir Alex Ferguson, his Manchester United coach, said that his relationship and public overexposure affected his performance in the grass. «The boy was never a problem until he married,» the coach said. The divorce of his parents and the discovery in 2002 by the police of an alleged kidnapping plan of Victoria and his two children ended up increasing the pressure on the player to unsuspected limits. In July 2003 he left the United Kingdom to start his new professional stage at Real Madrid. As published by the newspaper AS in a news of the time, in just four months, a million shirts of their new team were sold, dynamiting all records of the moment. The scrutiny about his personal life did not cease – including news about his adventure with Rebecca Loos; Recognized by her and always denied by him – but the Beckham were already accustomed to it and lived practically isolated from the outside world, there are hardly any images of public outings beyond Victoria's visits and their children to their games. 
David Beckham in a Real Madrid match, in 2007.Mariano Martínez (Mariano Martinez/Cordon Press) his extravagant hairstyles, the tattoos that were splashing his body until he almost did not leave skin space without ink, the watches he bought, the cars he drove, his very expensive clothes … Everything was analyzed to detail. Leaving aside his sports triumphs, in detail documented in the sports news of those years, Beckham finished consecrating himself as an authentic icon of his time and popularized the term «Metroxual», a neologism of ephemeral duration that he designated, as you can read in the newspaper library of this newspaper, “a type of sensitive man, with female touches, educated, to whom he likes the great environment, who likes the great atmosphere of Cities, go shopping, who goes to the stylist to cut his hair instead of the hairdresser, the manicure is made, he knows perfection delicate cooking recipes and loves to collect shoes. The term fell into disuse, but that Beckham commercial pull remains unchanged.
The business of being David Beckham
After passing through Real Madrid, he was signed in 2007 by Los Angeles Galaxy and, until his retirement, it was and wine from the Angelino club with short stays in teams such as Milan or Paris Saint Germain, where he played five months before hanging his boots. After more than 20 years of experience, he said goodbye to his career as a player in May 2013. However, football has always been a constant in his life. Perhaps, its most ambitious project in recent years has been to boost the Inter Miami football club, a team that plays at the MLS, the United States and Canada soccer league. The eccentrocampist became 2020 in the highest shareholder of the club, in addition to its sports manager. And his dream of consolidating football in North America is being taken very seriously. 
David Beckham during an Inter Miami CF match, on August 2, 2023. David Buono (Zumapress.com / Cordon Press) in July 2023, already as president of the club, signed no less than Lionel Messi, who has aroused interest in superstar football such as Leonardo Dicaprio or Selena Gomez, common until now in basketball matches. «I promised to bring the best players to the club, it was a little foolish promise because you never know if you will have that opportunity, but I have managed to bring the best player of all time and we are very proud,» he said in a talk with CBS in mid -April. Luis Suárez, Jordi Alba or Sergio Busquets are other players who have said yes to Beckham. Apart from his debut as a presenter and his work with Inter Miami, Beckham does not waste time and continually explore new business paths. For example, in November of last year it launched a line of supplements called MI8 (developed by the hand of Prednetics, a hongkonese company of biotechnology that is quoted in the stock market and of which it is investor). In addition, he is director of DB Ventures, the company under which it markets products and perfumes with its name. And he is one of the owners of the producer Studio 99, who copied his documentary and now already works on his wife's. All this, together with the benefits generated by the homonymous fashion firm of Victoria Beckham, reports to the marriage a heritage of more than 420 million euros. The surname Beckham remains a powerful claim.
