David Beckham, 2022 World Cup

Explained: David Beckham, ambassador for Qatar

Nick Miller and Matt Slater
Nov 22, 2022

A version of this article was first published on November 25, 2021.

Immaculately turned out and sitting in the expensive seats, David Beckham’s presence at the Khalifa International Stadium for England’s opening World Cup game against Iran was certainly good for his public visibility, with television pictures beamed to millions around the world, but what does his association with Qatar mean for “Brand Beckham”?

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He was there as part of his role as ambassador for the host nation, designed initially to promote and polish the image of the 2022 World Cup, but later to sell the idea of Qatar more generally. It’s quite a reverse from Beckham being at the forefront of England’s 2018 World Cup bid, one that was humiliated at the same time Qatar was awarded the 2022 tournament.

David Beckham has long-standing links with Qatar, stretching back to his playing days at Paris Saint-Germain (Photo: Richard Sellers/Getty Images)

Beckham is no stranger to sporting events in Qatar. This time last year he was in attendance at the Qatar Grand Prix, shaking hands and kissing cheeks, visiting and inspecting the Qatari government’s various charitable initiatives, providing handsome content and generally performing the role of David Beckham to perfection.

He was not the only British sporting icon in attendance that day — Lewis Hamilton was also there. He won the race, dominating the rest of the field in his Mercedes, finishing more than 25 seconds ahead of his rival for the Formula One Championship, Max Verstappen. He did so while wearing a rainbow crash helmet in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, which was described as “an incredible act of allyship” by Richard Morris, co-founder of Racing Pride. Hamilton tweeted pictures of him wearing the helmet, along with the message, “We stand together.”

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Both were there as part of their professional obligations, using their respective platforms, performing their roles to perfection and doing everything their employers might have asked of them.

One view would be that this was two different men attempting to affect change in Qatar in their own way. One via overt advocacy and allyship, the other through the softly-softly harnessing of fame and influence.

Another view would be that Hamilton was contractually obliged as part of his wider job to perform in a country where homosexuality is illegal, but decided to protest against it anyway, while Beckham was there — and is there now — as an active choice to pursue a lucrative gig advocating for that very state, where anti-LGBTQ+ laws are just one of the human rights concerns.

Beckham with the president of the Qatar Olympic Committee, Joaan bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (right), and other special guests in Doha (Photo: Mohammed Dabbous/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Beckham has signed up to be the face of a country where thousands of migrant workers have died during the construction of the infrastructure required for the 2022 World Cup.

Is it morally justifiable for him to promote Qatar? How can he endorse them while being an ambassador for Unicef, the United Nations’ children’s charity? And, ultimately, will it actually harm the image of a man whose status in the mind of the public appeared to be elevated in September when he queued for hours to pay his respects following the death of Queen Elizabeth II?


It probably should be no surprise that Beckham has teamed up with Qatar. His final games as a player were for Paris Saint-Germain and he has been on good terms with the club and BeIN Sport’s president Nasser Al-Khelaifi ever since.

He has subsequently struck up a good relationship with Hassan Al-Thawadi, who runs the organisation responsible for Qatar 2022, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, and can even count the emir, the 41-year-old Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, as a friend. He has visited the country frequently, the Grand Prix being the most recent example as the country marked a year to go before the World Cup.

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But unlike Hamilton, Beckham has said little in public about the clear issues in the country.

“Qatar dreamed of bringing the World Cup to a place that it had never been before, but that it wouldn’t be enough just to achieve things on the pitch,” Beckham said at a recent youth festival. “The pitch would be a platform for progress. Dreams can come true. That is why you are here. You share Generation Amazing’s twin passions for the game of football and for making the world a more tolerant and inclusive place.”

“You’d have to be living under a rock to fail to see, in the last decade, articles about the hundreds and probably thousands of preventable deaths of migrant workers building stadium infrastructure in Qatar,” Minky Worden, director of global initiatives for Human Rights Watch, tells The Athletic.

“LGBT identity is criminalised in Qatar, and the ‘conduct’ is criminalised. You are the crime when you arrive in Qatar.

“There are no women’s rights. They have a male guardianship system (meaning women have to obtain permission from their male relatives to do things like marry, study abroad, take certain jobs) that’s very akin to Saudi Arabia. Consensual sexual relations are illegal (outside of marriage).

“There are no unions. When Beckham was a player he was part of the global player union, but in Qatar, they are illegal.

“There’s no meaningful press freedom. The New York Times op-ed on censorship I wrote was censored in Qatar. There’s really pernicious phishing and hacking, which is state-sponsored.”

Qatar, of course, would push back at these criticisms, pointing that it has different customs to the West but everybody is welcome at this year’s World Cup. It would also say there are women in high positions in every sector in the country and Qatar is the home of Al Jazeera, the award-winning TV news channel, and the Middle East outposts of some of the most famous American universities, including Cornell and Georgetown.

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That said, last year’s Grand Prix weekend was meant to be a triumph for the ambitious state — it coincided with the opening of a new Jeff Koons exhibition in Doha and marked the year-to-go milestone.

And yet the clippings that followed included an Associated Press report about a former CIA agent hired by Qatar’s World Cup bid team to spy on rivals, football officials and journalists, and a story about the arrest of two Norwegian journalists who were investigating labour conditions. They were soon released and left the country but these stories are not going away.

Beckham with Red Bull Racing’s Christian Horner last weekend (Photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

Beckham is probably aware of all this and if he isn’t, his very smart representatives are, but he is signed up in any case. The question then becomes: how much does working for Qatar mean he tacitly or directly endorses what is happening and has happened there?

This question can be asked about a range of issues on which Beckham has campaigned. He is an ambassador for Unicef and was named as one of the top 10 “straight allies” at the British LGBT Awards in 2019, the same year his wife Victoria released a t-shirt to celebrate Pride with the message “Everyone Deserves Love” emblazoned on it.

Chelsea’s Magdalena Eriksson wrote last year that, as a gay woman, she would not want to travel to Qatar. Josh Cavallo, the Adelaide United midfielder who came out, said he would be “scared” to play in the World Cup or even visit the country.

“His decision to promote a homophobic and sexist regime like Qatar comes as a big shock,” said the gay rights activist Peter Tatchell in October 2021. “I urge David to think again.”


From Beckham’s perspective, he will be keen to stress that he is not just walking into this blindly. He believes that, even since he first got to know Al-Khelaifi and Al-Thawadi, things have improved in Qatar.

There have been some significant changes already. The kafala system, the extraordinarily pernicious rules that meant migrant workers could not change jobs without permission from their employers (permission that was frequently denied), was “effectively dismantled” in October 2020, according to the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO). A new monthly minimum wage of 1,000 riyals (about £205) will be mandated early in 2022, a figure that is more than many are being paid now but that Amnesty International understandably believes is still too low.

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Beckham believes he has done his own due diligence by getting to know the country’s leaders, and by visiting several times over the past decade.

“David has been visiting Qatar regularly for over a decade and went on to play for PSG so he has seen the passion for football in the country and the long-term commitment that’s been made to hosting the World Cup and delivering a lasting legacy for the region,” a spokesperson for Beckham tells The Athletic.

“He’s always talked about the power of football as a force for good on many levels.”

The former England captain also believes Qatar when it says the World Cup is helping to drive reforms, and will continue to do so. In that regard, Beckham agrees with FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

“I have found open doors — people who are ready to embrace change,” was Infantino’s answer in November last year when asked about the state of play in Qatar.

“It’s not easy, of course. It takes time. Not everything is perfect. But changes have been made and without the World Cup and the spotlight it brings, these changes would have taken decades.”

Both men believe the best way to make change is to engage with the leaders of the country, rather than ignore or boycott them. From the Englishman’s perspective, this deal does not mean he is endorsing — tacitly or otherwise — a human rights-abusing regime, but rather using his fame to promote change.

“There are two approaches Beckham could take,” Worden says. “He could consult with us and learn about the horrific human rights abuses in Qatar, and decide not to take the job.

Beckham’s relationship stems from his time with PSG (Photo: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

“The second option is: take the contract but then also take up human rights. All the rights and freedoms he has enjoyed, he should advocate for. The labour of the two million migrant workers is supporting his contract. There’s a very direct link.

“How would David Beckham feel if he signs a contract with Qatar, if they took his passport, or paid him late or not at all, and if he attempts to complain about it they threaten to put him in jail and not contact his family? That’s the experience a lot of workers have in Qatar.

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“If you sign a contract with Qatar, you should think about the two million migrant workers.

“He has the most leverage before he signs any contract. However, after you sign the contract, if you have a large international profile, you also have the potential to advocate for those who can’t advocate for themselves.”

Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ advocacy group, did not wish to comment directly on Beckham’s situation, but told The Athletic: “LGBTQ+ people belong in sport, and the tournament is an important opportunity to shine a light on the challenges that LGBTQ+ supporters will face in Qatar, and also the wider human-rights violations inflicted on LGBTQ+ Qataris.”

The reforms already made may well improve the lives of some workers (although the Guardian reported last year it spoke to 40 of them and only one had seen any noticeable difference in the previous year), but you could equally argue the damage has already been done. No amount of workers’ reforms will bring back the thousands who have died.

Nicholas McGeehan is a director of Fair Square, a not-for-profit human rights organisation, and an expert on labour rights in the Gulf region.

“Qatar can credibly claim to have made some progress on workers’ rights since 2010,” he tells The Athletic. “Of course, we can argue about how long it has taken and how widely the reforms are being observed.

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“But the issue of workers’ deaths is different because the response has been so appalling that Qatar’s PR machine can’t muddy the waters.

“There have probably been at least 5,000 unexplained deaths, and not only is Qatar still failing to put in place proper protections, but it is also still refusing to properly investigate these deaths, which leaves thousands of families without answers and without compensation. For as long as they refuse to fix this problem, I’m not sure how Beckham can square pocketing millions to be their PR frontman.”

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Early last year, the Guardian reported that 6,751 migrant workers from just five countries — India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — have died in Qatar since the small but rich Gulf state was awarded the World Cup in December 2010. The report was based on data from those countries’ embassies and the newspaper said the real toll would be much higher, as it did not include figures from other countries with significant numbers in Qatar. The Athletic’s position is that we will refer to “thousands of unexplained deaths”.

The Guardian’s report provoked a furious response from Qatar, which claimed the newspaper failed to differentiate between agricultural labourers, construction workers, domestic staff or even more white-collar roles. For the Qataris, this number was not evidence of an oppressive system but the logical outcome of having a huge expatriate population. According to a recent estimate, Qatar’s population is made up of 300,000 Qatari citizens and 2.5 million expatriate workers.

Even the ILO, which has been critical of Qatar’s failure to investigate workers’ deaths, believes the 6,751 figure is misleading. And Qatar’s Supreme Committee has repeatedly pointed out that only three people have died building their stadia — three too many, for sure, but not a number out of proportion with other big construction projects elsewhere.

However, the Supreme Committee acknowledged this time last year there had been a further 34 “non-work related” deaths at the workers’ camps for which it is responsible. Most of these deaths have been from “acute respiratory failure”, an unusual cause of death for fit young men but not so unusual when those men have been working in Qatar’s furnace-like heat.

And remember, the Supreme Committee is responsible for about 30,000 of Qatar’s army of migrant workers. It has no control over the guys building the roads between the grounds, the hotels and the new metro system.

For some campaigners, the Supreme Committee’s numbers are like Marlboro claiming the only people their products have killed were a few blokes crushed when a pallet full of cigarette packets landed on them.


The first reports of the Qatar partnership in October 2021 indicated it was worth £150 million over 10 years to Beckham but The Athletic understands the real figure is more modest.

Sources indicate he will actually be paid around £12 million a year for an initial three years, with options to extend. Beckham’s camp have not publicly corrected the more lavish reports because, well, why would they play down his brand?

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But no endorsement should be purely about the money. Beckham’s image is painstakingly crafted, so he will not have entered into any agreement that could damage it without serious consideration.

For some observers of Brand Beckham, the Qatari link leads back to Inter Miami. When the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star joined LA Galaxy in 2007, his deal included the offer of a future Major League Soccer franchise for $25 million, an option he exercised in 2014, although it would take six more years to get Inter Miami on the pitch.

That buy-in price proved to be something of a steal. Charlotte FC, the league’s 28th team, paid an expansion fee of $325 million in 2019. And, according to American business outlet Sportico, Inter Miami were worth $525 million (nearly £400 million) this time last year but are probably punching below their weight.

Beckham launched Inter Miami but the team has struggled so far (Photo: Eric Espada/Getty Images)

The club’s value is harmed by the fact they play in a temporary home in Fort Lauderdale, 25 miles north of the city centre, and the team has underperformed. They failed to reach the 14-team play-offs last season, then made it this time around but were beaten in the first round. Coached by Beckham’s friend Phil Neville, they were also sanctioned in May 2021 for breaking the league’s salary-cap rules.

Knowing he needed local partners and serious financial firepower to launch the club, Beckham partnered with Cuban-American businessmen and brothers Jorge and Jose Mas, and Marcelo Claure and Masayoshi Son, the chief operating officer and chief executive of Japanese-based technology fund SoftBank.

This broke down into a 50/50 split, with Beckham and the Mas brothers on one side, and the SoftBank duo on the other. For his part, the 46-year-old Londoner owned 10 per cent of the club but exercised an option in September 2020 to buy another five per cent for just over $15 million, or £11 million.

But differences of opinion within the group — primarily between Claure and the Mas brothers — led to the band breaking up, with Claure and Son putting their 50 per cent up for sale at $250 million. In September 2021, MLS announced the Mas brothers had bought out their former partners and formed a new partnership with Ares Management Corporation, a US-based global alternative investment manager.

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However, The Athletic understands the long-term plan is to bring Qatar in as a partner at Inter Miami. This has been discussed in the past but has never progressed beyond talks. What did get closer to happening was a shirt sponsorship deal with Qatar Airways — a tie-in with a new Doha to Miami route — but that failed to materialise and Inter Miami subsequently signed a deal with a cryptocurrency firm.

Coincidentally, that route opened last summer, and the Supreme Committee is hoping US-based soccer fans travel in their usual high numbers to the World Cup.

Qatari investment in Inter Miami, of course, would make the task of building a 25,000-seat stadium downtown much easier, particularly as the city’s taxpayers have made it clear they will not be subsidising another stadium after the controversy surrounding the Miami Marlins’ expensive baseball diamond.

And then there is the small matter of Lionel Messi. One theory that refuses to go away is the Argentinian maestro will go from one Qatari state-backed football venture to another after he has won a Champions League title for PSG.

Sources close to Beckham, however, assure us this is just rumour.


There is another, much simpler, take on why Beckham is hooking up with Qatar: he needs the money.

The rationale for this theory is based on what appears to be a picture of gradual decline at David Beckham Ventures Limited (DBVL), the company set up in 2014 to bring together his business ventures and endorsements, and its parent company Beckham Brand Holdings Limited, which incorporates the various fashion brands created by his wife, Victoria.

According to the accounts filed at Companies House, the parent company for Posh and Becks’ companies had a turnover of £45.8 million in 2018 but lost £1.5 million. In 2019, the turnover halved to £22.7 million but the firm returned to profit, making £4.5 million.

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This was obviously good news but still a long way down on the numbers for 2015, 2016 and 2017, when Beckham Brand Holdings had turnovers of £47.2 million, £47.5 million and £55.7 million, and profits of £31.6 million, £16.1 million and £12.3 million.

So, 2019 saw a big fall in turnover but a return to profitability. Confused? The numbers for 2015 to 2018 are skewed by phased payments from Global Brands Group (GBG), a company listed in Hong Kong, for Seven Global, a joint venture with DBVL that controlled most of the former footballer’s commercial partnerships, such as his 25-year relationship with Adidas and a deal with watchmaker Tudor.

GBG owned 51 per cent of Seven Global, with DBVL owning the rest, and the former paid the latter more than £50 million over four years for the privilege, with £30 million of that coming in 2015, which explains that year’s bumper profit.

So far, so good. Unfortunately, GBG has gone bust. Sources close to Beckham, however, see this as an opportunity to take back control of his endorsements and are in talks to buy the rest of Seven Global from the administrators.

There is more to unpick, though. Another Chinese deal, this time to resurrect English menswear brand Kent & Curwen and flog it all over China, was shut down in early 2020 after significant losses. And there are suggestions his deal to promote hotels owned by US gambling giant Las Vegas Sands in the Far East could be coming to an end as the Chinese government cracks down on the massive profits foreign companies were making in Macau pre-COVID-19.

Sources close to the 47-year-old deny this partnership is in trouble, however, and say high-rollers will soon be snapping up the suites he has designed at The Londoner hotel in Macau, which has holograms of Beckham and a London taxi in the lobby, and luxuriating again at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

But there was also the fallout from Beckham’s split with former partner Simon Fuller and his XIX entertainment and rights business. Fuller was the Spice Girls’ manager and the founder of Pop Idol but Beckham bought out his one-third share in DBVL for £33 million in 2019.

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And then there is Victoria. Her fashion and beauty brand is partially propped up by her husband, with large sums flowing from DBVL to VB Holdings every year. In 2019 and 2020, this support amounted to £25 million.

But the narrative needs updating. VB Holdings is no longer losing pots of money and you cannot miss Victoria’s products in department stores. One source suggested the cash flow between David and Victoria could be reversed in the not too distant future.

David and Victoria at Sergio Ramos’ wedding (Photo: Cristina Quicler/AFP via Getty Images)

That is not something sources close to David Beckham are worrying about, though. They say DBVL is going “like gangbusters” as the business evolves from being one based on endorsements to one fuelled by investments.

Last year alone, he invested in a company that converts high-end cars into electric vehicles, an esports team and a consumer cannabinoid firm. Studio 99, the production company he launched in 2019, has also started to deliver content to customers — the BBC, for example, bought Fever Pitch, a documentary about the start of the Premier League — and is now working on a Beckham biopic.

Perhaps it is too early to say Beckham has reached the Last Dance stage of his time as a serious earner, then. After all, his company has paid out £80 million in dividends to shareholders — mainly Mr and Mrs Beckham — since 2014. But you do wonder if a truly booming Beckham Brands Holding Limited would have entertained a joint venture with a partner that presented so many open goals to critics.


Ultimately, will his association with Qatar damage Brand Beckham in any material sense?

Probably not.

“How many World Cup sponsors have pulled out?” asks David Alexander, managing director of Calacus Sports PR agency. “How many sports clubs refuse to engage with sponsors from Russia or the Middle East or China if there is a commercial benefit to them?

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“When you look at the names of some of those who have supported Qatar 2022, has it damaged their brands? Big names such as Xavi, now back at Barcelona, World Cup winner Cafu, Samuel Eto’o and Tim Cahill have all been signed as global ambassadors.

“The bid itself gained support from Sir Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola and Zinedine Zidane, who will all have been made aware of previous human rights issues in Qatar.

Barcelona, Bayern Munich and obviously PSG all have strong sponsorship or ownership connections to Qatar. How much have any of these reputations been damaged or impacted by their association with Qatar? I’d argue not a great deal, if at all.

“If images are shown around the world of Beckham in the royal box at the World Cup final, will his reputation suffer as a consequence? I highly doubt it.”

But commercial considerations are one thing. Beckham might be able to justify this partnership to himself, as either a business necessity or because he genuinely believes that he can be a force for good.

What about the rest of the world, though? What about the human rights issues laid out in this article? “It’s something he has to account for,” says Worden. “Let’s give him the chance to do the right thing. The many human rights organisations who have been working on Qatar would be delighted to meet with him and explain the situation.”

McGeehan strikes a similar note: “My question to David Beckham would be where are you getting your information from? Because if it’s from the Qataris or the trade unions they have invited to Qatar to oversee the reforms, that is not what I’d call independent information. Has he spoken to truly independent organisations like Amnesty or Human Rights Watch to get a more balanced view?”

HRW’s door is still open to Beckham, as is Amnesty’s: both have told The Athletic that should he want to discuss the situation, they would be more than happy to meet him.

David, if you’re reading this, give them a call.

(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Tom Slator)

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