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Soccer Spice: Beckham Brouhaha
Aired June 10, 2003 - 15:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right.
Who's the world's most famous athlete? Quiz for you. Michael Jordan? Tiger Woods? David Beckham? David who?, you say. Well, the answer is David Beckham. You know David Beckham, right? He's the bloke who's married to the former Spice Girl Posh and he plays a little soccer on the side. We call it soccer, he calls it football.
Beckham's back in the news again today in a big way. And Pedro Pinto of CNN World Sport -- not Sports -- Sport -- is here to tell us why.
Pedro, good to have you with us.
PEDRO PINTO, CNN WORLD SPORT: Thanks for having me. First of all, good use of the word bloke there.
O'BRIEN: Bloke. I thought -- I like that bloke stuff. Yes.
Let's talk about Beckham. First of all, we got to give this some perspective to an American audience...
PINTO: Right.
O'BRIEN: ... who doesn't follow football.
PINTO: Right.
O'BRIEN: How big is Beckham?
PINTO: Beckham is huge.
In the United States you might not consider him as one of the most recognizable superstars, but everywhere else he is. Everyone know David Beckham and everybody follows everything David Beckham does.
Why is he in the news today? Well, he might be on the move to Barcelona. He currently plays for English champions Manchester United. And this is very relevant, because you could compare it, I guess, to, say, Derek Jeter leaving the New York Yankees or maybe Brett Favre leaving the Green Bay Packers.
(CROSSTALK)
PINTO: Big money. He's currently on $165,000 a week. That's about $8.5 million a year, if you're trying to calculate that. And this is huge because David Beckham is an icon.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
PINTO: He's an icon not only for what he does on the pitch, but what he -- or on the field, but what he does off it. You know, of course, he's married to Posh Spice, Victoria Adams, and doesn't hurt his popularity either.
O'BRIEN: A hundred and sixty-five thousand a week, you said that will keep her in nice platform shoes or whatever she likes.
Explain this. Now, we don't -- they don't have free agency like we know it. So if the Manchester United Club, which is kind of like the Yankees of football, right?
PINTO: Yes, and they are actually linked with the Yankees...
O'BRIEN: Right?
PINTO: ...through a commercial deal. Yes.
O'BRIEN: And if they decide to do this and he doesn't want to go, how does that all play out?
PINTO: Manchester United owned David Beckham. It doesn't work like here when most of the trades happen with trades when you trade players, unless a player runs out of a contract, the player can sell him to whoever and for whatever they want.
Now if Manchester United are willing to sell him, which is what they said today. They said the would accept a bid from Barcelona, should their presidential candidate win the elections that are coming up at Barcelona. They would be...
O'BRIEN: Which is kind of a strange thing. This has gotten involved into a presidential election.
PINTO: Politics, yes.
O'BRIEN: Which, you know, probably is another story.
PINTO: That's a whole other issue. But we're talking about 30 million pounds, $50 million.
(CROSSTALK)
PINTO: That is just to get the player. That doesn't involve salary, nothing. Endorsement deals, nothing. So that would all be separate.
O'BRIEN: All right. But Beckham himself says, I'm not going to Barcelona. I would rather go to Madrid, which is more of a powerhouse team. Where do you -- how do you think it's all going to play out? PINTO: He was linked with Real Madrid, he was as linked with the European champions, now as well, AC Milan. But there's a problem with Ria Madrid is -- Beckham, as one of his many endorsements, is Vodafone, a huge company of cell phones in Europe and other parts of the world. And Real Madrid is sponsored by Siemen's (ph), which is a challenger, a competition. So that would be a problem. And Real Madrid already have so many stars, I don't think that they would have space for Beckham on the team right now.
What is curious to see, Miles, is that this isn't one of the top players -- he is one of the top players in the world -- maybe not three or top five, but he's still got the status of a Michael Jordan worldwide or a Tiger Woods. It's just unbelievable because of his life off the field is so always in the news and with Posh and his haircuts. We have seen him with cornrows, which is a big story.
O'BRIEN: Oh, those cornrows. Yes.
PINTO: Yes.
O'BRIEN: He's got that je ne sais qua (ph), I guess. Yes, whatever. All right. Pedro Pinto, thanks for dropping by. Please do and keep us posted and let us know what Beckham does.
PINTO: You could have news, yes.
O'BRIEN: Yes, indeed.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 10, 2003 - 15:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right.
Who's the world's most famous athlete? Quiz for you. Michael Jordan? Tiger Woods? David Beckham? David who?, you say. Well, the answer is David Beckham. You know David Beckham, right? He's the bloke who's married to the former Spice Girl Posh and he plays a little soccer on the side. We call it soccer, he calls it football.
Beckham's back in the news again today in a big way. And Pedro Pinto of CNN World Sport -- not Sports -- Sport -- is here to tell us why.
Pedro, good to have you with us.
PEDRO PINTO, CNN WORLD SPORT: Thanks for having me. First of all, good use of the word bloke there.
O'BRIEN: Bloke. I thought -- I like that bloke stuff. Yes.
Let's talk about Beckham. First of all, we got to give this some perspective to an American audience...
PINTO: Right.
O'BRIEN: ... who doesn't follow football.
PINTO: Right.
O'BRIEN: How big is Beckham?
PINTO: Beckham is huge.
In the United States you might not consider him as one of the most recognizable superstars, but everywhere else he is. Everyone know David Beckham and everybody follows everything David Beckham does.
Why is he in the news today? Well, he might be on the move to Barcelona. He currently plays for English champions Manchester United. And this is very relevant, because you could compare it, I guess, to, say, Derek Jeter leaving the New York Yankees or maybe Brett Favre leaving the Green Bay Packers.
(CROSSTALK)
PINTO: Big money. He's currently on $165,000 a week. That's about $8.5 million a year, if you're trying to calculate that. And this is huge because David Beckham is an icon.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
PINTO: He's an icon not only for what he does on the pitch, but what he -- or on the field, but what he does off it. You know, of course, he's married to Posh Spice, Victoria Adams, and doesn't hurt his popularity either.
O'BRIEN: A hundred and sixty-five thousand a week, you said that will keep her in nice platform shoes or whatever she likes.
Explain this. Now, we don't -- they don't have free agency like we know it. So if the Manchester United Club, which is kind of like the Yankees of football, right?
PINTO: Yes, and they are actually linked with the Yankees...
O'BRIEN: Right?
PINTO: ...through a commercial deal. Yes.
O'BRIEN: And if they decide to do this and he doesn't want to go, how does that all play out?
PINTO: Manchester United owned David Beckham. It doesn't work like here when most of the trades happen with trades when you trade players, unless a player runs out of a contract, the player can sell him to whoever and for whatever they want.
Now if Manchester United are willing to sell him, which is what they said today. They said the would accept a bid from Barcelona, should their presidential candidate win the elections that are coming up at Barcelona. They would be...
O'BRIEN: Which is kind of a strange thing. This has gotten involved into a presidential election.
PINTO: Politics, yes.
O'BRIEN: Which, you know, probably is another story.
PINTO: That's a whole other issue. But we're talking about 30 million pounds, $50 million.
(CROSSTALK)
PINTO: That is just to get the player. That doesn't involve salary, nothing. Endorsement deals, nothing. So that would all be separate.
O'BRIEN: All right. But Beckham himself says, I'm not going to Barcelona. I would rather go to Madrid, which is more of a powerhouse team. Where do you -- how do you think it's all going to play out? PINTO: He was linked with Real Madrid, he was as linked with the European champions, now as well, AC Milan. But there's a problem with Ria Madrid is -- Beckham, as one of his many endorsements, is Vodafone, a huge company of cell phones in Europe and other parts of the world. And Real Madrid is sponsored by Siemen's (ph), which is a challenger, a competition. So that would be a problem. And Real Madrid already have so many stars, I don't think that they would have space for Beckham on the team right now.
What is curious to see, Miles, is that this isn't one of the top players -- he is one of the top players in the world -- maybe not three or top five, but he's still got the status of a Michael Jordan worldwide or a Tiger Woods. It's just unbelievable because of his life off the field is so always in the news and with Posh and his haircuts. We have seen him with cornrows, which is a big story.
O'BRIEN: Oh, those cornrows. Yes.
PINTO: Yes.
O'BRIEN: He's got that je ne sais qua (ph), I guess. Yes, whatever. All right. Pedro Pinto, thanks for dropping by. Please do and keep us posted and let us know what Beckham does.
PINTO: You could have news, yes.
O'BRIEN: Yes, indeed.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
