{"id":336417,"date":"2023-10-05T00:34:56","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T00:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=336417"},"modified":"2023-10-05T03:04:26","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T03:04:26","slug":"beckham-proud-of-18m-deal-that-hurt-gay-icon-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=336417","title":{"rendered":"Beckham 'proud' of $18m deal that hurt 'gay icon' status"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football<\/a> legend David Beckham<\/a> says he was "proud" to be an ambassador for last year's men's World Cup<\/a> despite his involvement sparking uproar.<\/p>\n

The 48-year-old was the target of \ufeffmass criticism when he accepted a reported $17.7 million to be the face of the event in Qatar<\/a> – a nation where homosexuality is illegal.<\/p>\n

The reason Beckham came under fire was his 20-year status as an icon of sorts for the gay community\ufeff, having been the first straight athlete to appear on the cover of Attitude<\/em> magazine in the UK, and in 2007 claiming "I feel honoured to have the tag of 'gay icon'".<\/p>\n

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Prominent English comedian Joe Lycett filmed a video of himself shredding $17,000 in protest at Beckham's decision<\/a> to represent the Gulf nation, while the former England captain was forced to leave a $36,000-a-night hotel when fans figured out where he was staying<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"FORT<\/p>\n

Now, almost a year after the tournament, Beckham has spoken about the controversy but made no apologies.<\/p>\n

"I had a lot of conversations with the LGBTQ community when I was there and they said they'd been treated perfectly fine," Beckham told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

"They felt it was the safest World Cup they have had for a long time.<\/p>\n

"Whatever partnership I go into within the business we always do our homework on everything.<\/p>\n

"To be involved in another World Cup for me was important. I've always said football is a game that should be shared around the world.<\/p>\n

"This was an opportunity for another nation, for the Arab world to host one of the biggest sporting events in the world.<\/p>\n

\"Comedian<\/p>\n

"Once we were there we knew there were going to be people who either talk about it a little bit more, or let the football do the talking.<\/p>\n

"It was a great tournament. A lot of people were happy there. It was an important competition and one I was proud to be part of."<\/p>\n

The Qatar World Cup was plagued by controversy and stunning allegations throughout the tournament.<\/p>\n

Two travelling journalists died during the World Cup<\/a>, \ufeffEngland captain Harry Kane was banned from wearing a rainbow armband<\/a> in support of gay rights, and fans were turned away for trying to take rainbow flags into stadiums<\/a>, among other incidents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Football legend David Beckham says he was "proud" to be an ambassador for last year's men's World Cup despite his involvement sparking uproar. The 48-year-old […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":318000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336417"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336420,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336417\/revisions\/336420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/318000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}