Contents:
‘A GAY IN NO MORE’: WILL DAVID BECKHAM’S QATAR ROLE KILL HIS BRAND?
His ma football passns clu Tugay, the San Siro and only g a wter ball when snows. Wherever Fahad, a gay man his 40s, walks his home cy of Doha, om the Qatari pal’s astal promena, known as the Corniche, to the gleamg streets of the super-morn downtown Msheireb district, David Beckham s down om the billboards and the big flashg former England pta, hband to the former Spice Girl Victoria, father to Brooklyn, Romeo, Harper and Cz, is not jt a face of the World Cup kickg off this Sunday, he is the pre-ement figure – a 2022 versn of the 1966 mast World Cup Willie some might be tempted to say, if not somethg tri to be unrstandg about the temptatn posed by the £150m al that Beckham is said to have been offered by Qatar, albe the value of the ntract is disputed.
Two weeks ago, Beckham, donng dark sunglass, posed alongsi the Brish sculptor Hugo Dalton and his stallatn of goln goal posts on Doha’s Lail Cy a jarrg ntrast, Human Rights Watch reported jt a few days before the sunny photoshoot on the sufferg of gay and transgenr people who said they had been taed as recently as October an unrground prison Doha’s Al Dafna district, six south of the goln posts, where they had been varly verbally abed, slapped, kicked and punched until they bled. Robbie Williams and Black Eyed Peas have e unr fire for agreeg to Beckham, ntrary to the pet name Goln Balls given to him by his wife the nocent days of 2008, when he uld do no wrong, has been the central target of the 2002 Beckham posed for the ver of Attu, the gay magaze, and subsequently ma the unniably pneerg statement a game riddled wh homophobia that he was “honoured to have the tag of gay in” distance Beckham has seemgly travelled the last two s might acunt for much of the vehemence of the backlash g his relatnship wh Qatar, a untry wh which he has longstandg lks om his time as a player at the French club, Paris Sat-Germa, owned by Tamim b Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, now arguably prents the biggt risk to the Beckham brand sce his talent and “curtas” haircut ught the public attentn wh an dac halfway-le goal agast Wimbledon 1996 the red of Manchter Powar, the director of Fare, an anti-discrimatn group that has an arrangement wh Fifa to post monors the World Cup stadiums Qatar, said had plead behd the scen whout succs for the untry’s supreme mtee, charge of the event, to make a public statement welg LGBTQ+ people to the football.
“Dpe Qatar beg a sexist, homophobic and racist dictatorship, he’s reportedly scribed as ‘perfectn’, ” he said. For ee real time breakg news alerts sent straight to your box sign up to our breakg news emailsSign up to our ee breakg news emailsDegree-ted, bi-lgual and wh a well-tablished reer at one of the untry’s leadg pani, Hamad is, to all appearanc, the very epome of morn-day, outward-lookg he harbours a secret, one which he says he has no choice but to keep hidn at all tim; Hamad is gay – a untry where homosexualy is illegal. A nservative, relig, thorarian state which appli Sharia law, theoretilly Qatar uld apply the ath penalty for homosexualy, although no such punishment has been is one of almost 70 untri intified worldwi by the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA), which crimalis nsensual same-sex activy.