More on Beckham and that Sierra Leone Trip

By: Laurie | January 27th, 2008

Reader Diane sent me an interesting link to an article about David Beckham on the Sierra Leone trip for Unicef. Just another reminder of how hard it is to pigeonhole the man.

On one hand, he is the exhibitionist of the Armani ads, the guy who loves to take off his shirt and strut around after games. (And he does love it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.) On another, he’s the hard-working player driven to succeed. On a third, he’s the consumption-addicted Hummer driver. And on another, there’s this Beckham. The Unicef guy who genuinely cares about malnourished children.

Wait. That’s four hands.

And each one of these is who he is, with 100% dedication, at any given time.

But anyhoo. Beckham. Unicef. The article. Here are a few of the paragraphs I found interesting. Be sure to read them all, because to read just one or two would be incomplete. Or better yet, read the entire article.

Does meeting such poor children make Beckham feel guilty about his privilege and wealth?

“I thought I would feel bad,” he admits. “And I did think, how am I going to feel when I get back to the hotel? But it’s all been surprisingly positive because I could see what Unicef is doing to help the children.

And:

“What made the day extra-special was not being recognised,” he adds. “In most countries of the world even children of four and five years old know who I am. But many of the children today hadn’t seen me play football and didn’t know who I was. But they warmed to me without the ‘Oh, that’s David Beckham’ thing. That was nice

And:

Since he earns a reported £25.6m a year with LA Galaxy, does he really need to make so much from endorsements? Briefly Beckham gets tetchy.

“Five years ago I had 13 sponsors, which was ridiculous, so I’ve made a conscious decision to cut it down to five,” he says. “But people probably don’t real-ise I’m putting a lot of money into the charity I run with my wife – which Victoria’s mum runs so we can know exactly where the money’s going. And I pour money into my football academies, which aren’t just about football.”

And last, this:

Foday Turay, 5, stick-thin, walks up to Beckham, clutches his hand and shyly presents him with a tiny bunch of yellow flowers. The footballer is visibly moved. Later he says: “I’ll never forget the way he held on to me and wouldn’t let me go the whole time I was there.”

Next is five-year-old Senyo, whose mother has so many other children, she couldn’t afford to feed her properly. The child’s legs became so severely wasted that she could no longer walk. Today, as the little girl teeters towards him, Beckham’s eyes film over. He blinks before he cheers her on, “Good girl; strong girl! Well done!”

As I said. Difficult to pigeonhole.