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NEVERMIND THE ‘GOLDENBALLS’: Why Pearce was right to exclude David Beckham

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I really thought that I would be writing an article ranting about David Beckham’s inclusion in the British Olympic squad as ‘sentimental nonsense,’ and how Stuart Pearce had buckled under the pressure from those wanting to see Beckham’s ‘swansong’ in his home area of east London. I’m happy to note that I am not. Well done to Pearce for picking players on merit. Some journalists are very angry about it. No doubt the same ones would have been just as angry if Beckham was one of the 18 players selected.

They accuse Pearce of being ‘‘mean-spirited, out of touch with popular sentiment and wrong.’’

During major championships like the Euros just gone, they moan about football in England being out of touch with the rest of the world, and then state that Beckham should have been picked purely because it would have established a ‘‘feel-good factor.’’ Make your minds up! Do you think that’s how Argentina and Brazil choose their players whenever they enter the Olympic Games?

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They pick their team on merit; they do not select someone just because he campaigned for his country to host the Games or that he’ll draw in fans that are more interested in his hair and tattoos – however big an icon he is. Amazingly, this is what many experienced professionals in football are saying. By this logic, we should have fellow campaigner Sebastian Coe running for Great Britain again. It’s about football and football only.

Can you imagine Alex Ferguson or Brian Clough picking a player on the basis of those aforementioned premises? It just wouldn’t happen. The Olympic Games is arguably the second most prestigious tournament in world sport – behind the Fifa World Cup – where a Gold medal is at stake for the victor. Football is seen as a ‘token’ sport in the Olympics by many, but every side is still in it to win plus it can provide big match experience for those who are competing, experience that could be valuable for them in the World Cups and Euros of future. If Beckham was selected it would have been, like so much these days, about celebrity.

Even if there wasn’t a limit for overage players I don’t feel he should have got in. Grant Holt, Adam Johnson, Joe Cole, Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, and Celtic striker, Gary Hooper, to name but a few, all deserve a place in the side more than Beckham. In football terms the overage players who were selected – Craig Bellamy, Ryan Giggs and Micah Richards – also deserve to be in the squad ahead of the former England international.

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  • ogunjuwon azeez says:

    I belive in england,,BG should ahead to olympic to win gold,,,but beckam deserve to play

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