David Beckham is held up in such esteem alongside various legends and icons. But these legends and icons are not of the football world, but of a world that consists of fashion, film, TV and glamour magazines.

Beckham, along with other footballers, has become known, for his actions off the pitch, rather then on it. Goldenballs is the one who kicked off this whole generation of metro sexual, OK/Hello magazine-appearing, film-award attending, wannabe acting, £2,000 hairstyle fashioning, so-called footballers.

The former Manchester United No.7 has turned into a human product, selling himself to the highest bidder - something his latest transfer has proved.

It's hard to remember that Beckham was a part of a world that involves a sphere known as football and not the one which makes up the Oscar, because this world has been non-existent for a long time. All those who think Beckham was or is a world-class legend who compares with the likes of Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Diego Maradona has no right to be preaching the virtues of beautiful game or following it. Instead, they should go and watch the tiddlywinks championships, and wait in anticipation for David’s first LA Galaxy game (you’ll be one of the many who have been deluded, I’m afraid).

Even when he was an actual footballer, he was not of world-class caliber - but he did have the potential. However, that got lost when he replaced his jumpers for goalposts with designer handbags and glad rags. I will put my hands up and say, he has a right foot that even God would envy. His ability to place a ball from 50 or 60 yards dead in front of a player, and to cross perfectly onto a striker’s head or pinpoint a ball precisely to the left or right side of a keeper constitutes world-class ability, without a doubt. But this is not American football, nor rugby (they already have Johnny Wilkinson), and so it is not enough.

I once remember a friend of mine wearing a T-shirt which read: “I saw Gilberto play a pass forward.” Well, I think someone should have one which reads: “I saw Beckham go past a player” - because he never did. He would run down the wing, come up to an opponent and do one of four things:

1. Pass the ball square.
2. Turn and pass the ball back to a defender or defensive midfielder.
3. Run back and pass it to back to a defender or defensive midfielder or goalkeeper.
4. Play a cross-field ball forward, square or back.

And I would sit there and laugh and wonder why he was held in such high esteem, when the likes of Bobby Pires and Ryan Giggs would ghost past players with such ease, and would be in double figures practically every season. Yet you wouldn’t hear a whisper in comparison to the noise about Beckham.

Assist wise, he was good. Like I mentioned, his pinpoint crossing, set pieces and passing would guarantee 10 or more assists - that is if had the space and free-kicks to do so. Defensively, Beckham is OK. He runs around a lot, and closes players down, but so does Joey Barton.

Beckham would have been good as a right-back; he has all the right attributes, especially the ability to bomb down the wing without the ball and overlap the right winger, receive the ball and cross it…. basically a rich man’s Gary Neville. But if he had become a right-back, I wouldn’t be typing this article, and he would never have got the fame and notoriety he has now.

Nor would he have the wife he has – and, more importantly, he wouldn’t have become the England captain.