Only a sceptic would question the motives of the world’s most recognisable footballer donating his next five month’s wages to a children’s charity. Why would he make this announcement after signing for a club that harbours long-term ambitions of challenging the might of Europe’s mega-clubs on transfer deadline day, when he could have done this at any point after his departure from LA Galaxy? Seeing that he now operates as a free agent and thus can broker deals beyond the restrictions placed upon contracted employees of football clubs, David Beckham’s appropriation of Friday’s back and front page headlines could be considered as yet another masterstroke in brand strengthening in the final embers of a career that has been played out with clinical precision and shrewd positioning as he now begins the inevitable transition into his post-playing future.
If you’re not that sceptic, this post is not for you. I’ll hopefully see you next week. If however, you’re of similar thinking, let me explain further.
David Beckham is by no means a bad man. He is clearly passionate about the game that gave him everything he now possesses. He is a great ambassador, quietly modest about his numerous achievements and unquestionably adoring of his family. He is rich beyond the comprehension of many of us and evidently does not need the reported three million pounds that Paris Saint-Germain are paying him in exchange for a mutually beneficial short-term partnership. I have no doubt that his gesture was nothing other than altruistic.
On the face of it, Beckham’s expression of good will should be applauded. Footballers are rarely lauded these days for their selflessness, caricatured as they are as craven egoists more interested in self-promotion and lacking in social conscience. This is evidently not the whole truth. Craig Bellamy and Didier Drogba are two examples of footballers who have gone to great lengths to espouse the benefits of philanthropy. However, such good deeds do not a good story make, but tales of wantaway strikers turning up unannounced at the gates of pariah clubs on Deadline Day clearly do. The truth is that scandal and acrimony will always play better to a rapacious public than any tales of common decency. David Beckham though is a very different beast and if he can use his celebrity to highlight the plight of Parisian children, then who am I to criticise this?
Nevertheless, I can’t help but refer back to the ethical consequences of charitable giving as discussed by the renowned philosopher, Slavoj Zizek. Zizek argues that we live in a time where capitalism, having spent much of its early stages perceived as an uncaring and morally ambivalent system, has cleverly evolved to a point where it now fosters an ethical model in order to prompt consumers into parting with their money in return for the illusion that they are doing something good for the planet. So, when we buy that slightly bitter-tasting fairtrade chocolate from Waitrose, our guilt is soothed by the knowledge that what we spend is re-invested back into the farming communities of Africa from whence the ingredients originated. It would be tempting to think that there is nothing wrong with such consumption. After all, what’s the problem with enjoying the fruits of peoples’ toil and simultaneously ‘doing our bit’?
Paradoxically though, the act of giving can subsequently turn into a selfish act. Zizek points out that while such ethical consumerism may benefit individuals in the short term (and he does not condemn this), it does not seek to address the weightier and more complex issues that are the causes for why a child lives in poverty or why a woman has to walk twenty miles to receive medical supplies for her sick baby. In that respect, Zizek suggests that rather than stroke our own egos by buying organic tomatoes, we should be applying pressure on governments, drug companies and banks to re-structure their social welfare and corporate responsibility models in order to eradicate such unnecessary inequalities.
This outlook of course could be readily dismissed as the soapbox ramblings of a bleeding heart leftist. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is not in the interests of capitalism to bring an end to such economic apartheids and thus the very concept of ethical consumerism and charity is a fanciful one. It would take a monumental change in our thinking on how the world should be run to see such radical change occur.
Thus Beckham’s wage ‘amnesty’ is little more than a hollow gesture. It will not change anything in a lasting sense. What it does do is make us hold him in even higher esteem as we salute his inherent goodness and it allows his new employers to generate the desired effect of opening up potential new markets for their growing brand by having Beckham put in a few cameo performances before May whilst shifting greater numbers of merchandise.
If football clubs as organisations, especially those increasingly owned by foreign investors, truly wanted to make a difference, they’d stop paying footballers unjustifiable sums of money and attempt to regenerate and engage with the communities in which they reside with those funds. Supporters should not be expected to pay for tickets at exorbitant rates for a sport they have devoted much of their lives to. Agents should be regulated and hindered from hiking up transfer fees to obscene levels.
In that respect, we’re all culpable. We all complain about the evils of the modern football experience but I haven’t seen any empty stadiums in the Premier League recently. I’ve said it before, all it takes is one day of organised boycotts of matches and a spark might actually ignite that could see football change for the better. The problem is, like our Fairtrade Coffee, we’re too addicted to it to try and truly change it. That’s how capitalism gets you. It’s not David Beckham’s fault. He’s just part of the deeper malaise. But before the inevitable twitter campaign calls for his knighthood, perhaps we should begin contemplating the real meaning of charity.
Further reading: Everything Must Go: A Solution To Football’s Money Problem
Follow Dispatches on Twitter: @Sofalife
First As Tragedy, Then As Farce by Slavoj Zizek:
Good article.
Wow! Football and Zizek in the same article. As a Marxist Zizek should know that all the world’s and football’s problems boil down to class, religion and addiction. They all keep us in our place and if you do dare to protest then the full force of the state will come down on you or you will be ignored. e.g. uK Uncut, 1 million people marching against war in Iraq, protests at dismantling of NHS. Thanks for another thoughtful article.
Also the fact that he didn’t know where the money was going – so not a charity he has chosen or knows anything about…
Yes, a charity will benefit – but surely one he is actively involved in would be a better choice?
He is. He’s an ambassador for Unicef among others. Not to mention his own charideee http://www.looktothestars.org/charity/victoria-and-david-beckham-charitable-trust
We love David Beckham. We hate David Beckham. O the paradox that is David Beckham.
Really well written article (…lest we be judged). I especially liked the damnation of football’s tycoons and crooks although it’s amazing how far we’ve come to think that lowering ticket prices would be considered an act of charity.
In terms of your proposition that we the people should devote our energy to influencing the very people we elected to control us, I’d suggest that the Fairtrade model is beneficial, if only it was a more significant commercial player. As a cooperative movement it operates outside government and with enough customers or members could be in a position to influence import agreements, trade tariffs, subsidy agendas and the like. If we all joined the cooperatives then maybe Fairtrade wouldn’t be as damaging or corrupt as it is. Allegedly.
As for the wealth accrued by the stars we idolise, as you rightly noted, the likes of Bellamy and Drogba contribute significantly to countries, such as Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, that need as much support as they can get. Ronaldo has just been made Global Spokeperson for Save the Children no less. Apparently being a father qualified him for the position. Or was it his global fame based on skills we can only dream of possessing?
If it’s the politicians and oligarchs against us and we’re not going to boycott elections or storm the barricades, then the game must be played. If that’s the case, then I want every player on our team, rich and powerful like Beckham but convinced of change and educated in the ways of achieving it. We need to infiltrate the bastions of power: nightclubs, restaurants and high-end boutiques in London, Liverpool and Manchester to convince our demi-gods to shoot their bolts of lighting and make fire, in the name of the people, for the people to bring an end to charity by leveling the playing field. They could subsidise tickets as much as they could bring an end to sweat shop labour or illegal mining or corporate crime in the boardrooms of the companies that sponsor the clubs or control the game. They are the game.
Or we just keep sucking at the teat of addiction and pleasure, curled up on the sofa, resigned in the knowledge that the world was ever thus.
It’s not our fault and here’s where I disagree. It’s David Beckhams’.