After years of being a sporting legend and an ambassador for change, David Beckham has finally been bestowed a knighthood.
The former England captain has always been a lover of the royal family, and in particular, King Charles, and now he’s in with the crowd.
“Growing up in East London with parents and grandparents who were so patriotic and proud to be British, I never could have imagined I would receive such a truly humbling honour,” he said in a statement to PA when the news broke of his honour.
He added that he was ‘immensely proud’ and was ‘grateful’ for being recognised for the honour.
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But there were two major controversies that might have stopped him from getting his knighthood sooner.
David Beckham gets knighthood
Having met the King and Queen Consort Camilla, Beckham gushed: “I’m so lucky to be able to do the work that I do, and I’m grateful to be recognised for work that gives me so much fulfilment. It will take a little while for the news to sink in, but I’m immensely proud, and it’s such an emotional moment for me to share with my family.”
Previously, the footballer earned an OBE in 2003 for his football career, and also began to advocate for charitable causes on the side-lines.
For this, he has been a long-standing Goodwill Ambassador for Unicef since 2005, he became a founding member of Malaria No More, and also an ambassador for the King’s Foundation, which supports education in the UK.
Of course, with a portfolio such as his, it’s only natural that he would be knighted, but what took it so long?
Beckham’s 'tax evasion' nightmare
One thing that may have stunted his knighthood journey a few years was the ‘tax evasion’ scandal that rocked him and other celebrities in 2007 when they invested into a film company that was brought up by HMRC as a tax evasion scheme.
Nearly a decade later, Beckham and Wayne Rooney lost a legal bid to overturn a £700m tax bill, along with over 1,000 other people who invested into the Ingenious film financing scheme.
Ingenious helped produce movies such as Avatar but also qualified for tax breaks which would help to support the UK film industry.
HMRC claimed Ingenious claimed relief on artificial losses from its films, providing a tax haven for those who invested in their schemes.
A tax tribunal upheld its 2016 decision to recoup the avoided tax, meaning that 1,400 people faced big bills in its wake.
An HMRC spokesperson said as per the BBC: "We are pleased that the tribunal has agreed with us that the vast majority of what was claimed in tax relief by Ingenious investors was simply not due."
Beckham and his wife Victoria are directors of Beckham Brand Holdings Ltd, and he is the director of at least 19 companies in Britain and more abroad.
Tom Bower wrote a book which claims huge sums of money were paid to auditors to oversee the accounts, with some being filed months late to Companies House.
Titled The House of Beckham, it also detailed that on one occasion, Beckham's accountants for his Seven Global Holding Company Limited had ‘forgotten’ about taxes worth £8.8million being withheld by the German government.
However, a source disputed Bower's claims saying the Beckhams ‘tax affairs are of course fully in order and have been duly filed, audited and approved by HMRC’, as per the Mirror.
The footballer’s leaked emails
While the tax thing was huge, as was Beckham's alleged email leak which might have got him snubbed the honours list.
It began when his name was absent from the 2014 honours list, which led to the publication on the Football Leaks website publishing communications from Beckham which allegedly saw him release fury upon the oversight of his honour.
Apparently, he called the deciding committee a 'bunch of c***s' and called the honours system as a ‘f**king joke’.
He allegedly also said: "I expected nothing less... Who decides on the honours? It's a disgrace to be honest and if I was American I would of [sic] got something like this 10 years ago... It's p***ed me off those old unappreciative c***s."
He’s supposed to have typed: "Unless it's a knighthood f**k off".
At the time Beckham's representative denied the claims that the former footballer was using such language by telling Daily Mail that the emails were 'doctored', stating: "This story is based on outdated material taken out of context from hacked and doctored private emails from a third-party server and gives a deliberately inaccurate picture."
Of course, now he’s only gone and got his honours, so maybe all is well in his mind.
Topics: Celebrity, David Beckham, Football, Royal Family, UK News
Britt Jones