Once again, David Beckham did not receive a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours list.
During his playing career, the legendary player from England won over the hearts of the country and continues to enjoy tremendous popularity. The former captain of the Three Lions was given an OBE in the 2003 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, but he has since received a lot of backlash.
Several football players, notably Sir Alex Ferguson, Beckham’s mentor at Manchester United, have been knighted. However, no player has had one in decades. In the sphere of sports, people like Lewis Hamilton and Jason Kenny have just been knighted.
Even though he is still adored by the public, some of Beckham’s post-retirement choices have drawn criticism. Despite being found out to have engaged in an ingenious tax avoidance plan in 2013, he was later found not guilty and reinstated to the official list of recommendations two years later.
Following the release of a damaging collection of emails in 2017, his prospects of being awarded an honour suffered yet another setback. Beckham attacked the awards committee in those emails for leaving him out. He claimed he didn’t “care about being knighted” and referred to them as “unappreciative c***s”.
He was also alleged to have written: “I expected nothing less. It’s a disgrace to be honest and if I was American I would of [sic] got something like this 10 years ago.”
