Like a perfectly nuanced advertising campaign that convinces hordes of teenage girls that they simply have to buy those jeans, the people over the pond seem to have been duped by the smoke and mirrors of the David Beckham brand.

Americans can buy the Beckham scent, the Beckham shower gel, they can see him modelling underwear during commercial breaks sprawled across your screen like a lazy Sunday morning, but as yet actually seeing him on the football field has been a pretty rare event . . . something that is driving the locals up the wall.

That Beckham only mustered eight games for the Galaxy last year was down to injuries. But he now appears to have abandoned the idea of doing any press work with regards to the MLS means that the LA Galaxy have a lame duck in both an on-field and marketing sense.

'When the full horror of Beckham's squeaky Leytonstone accent is revealed, this house of cards will well and truly collapse'


Yesterday LA Times columnist T.J. Simers, already something of a Beckham critic, recounted how, after waiting 213 days for Becks to settle in, he was rebuffed in his attempts to get a personal interview with the man. And this is the LA Times! If Becks cannot be bothered to shmooze them, then what of the grizzled outer-reaches of the MLS kingdom like Ohio?

And yet it turns out that although Beckham’s ‘people’ said that he was tired, he wasn’t that tired. You see that is the problem with being a celebrity, because Becks was pictured at “a pre-Grammy party at Hollywood's Club Central about 1 am Sunday, dancing with Janet Jackson.”

A subsequent meeting scheduled between Beckham and Simers was also cancelled on the Monday. Quite why or how Beckham’s previously slick PR machine has gone off-piste so dramatically is hard to fathom. The logic of shunning the LA Times, the very people that Beckham should be charming, is very questionable.

Simers then pretty much hits the nail on the head, claiming that although Beckham was billed as the soccer Messiah, without his footballing prowess he is just hot air. He writes: "But some journalists overseas have suggested Beckham is an intellectual lightweight, his wife doing all the talking for him, which might explain why his handlers don't want to leave him alone with a reporter.”

This is the crux of the matter, back in Blighty people could forgive Beckham for his mumbled chirruping and lack of media savvy, because he was Becks - saviour of England - and no matter how many interviews he stumbled and stuttered through, his right foot was articulate and cultured.

In LA, though, he wasn’t just brought in for his footballing panache, as even a full-throttle Beckham wouldn’t be able to woo that many people in with his free kicks and wide array of passes, he was brought in for his charisma. The horrible truth is that is something that Beckham doesn’t have, and when the full horror of his squeaky Leytonstone accent is revealed, this house of cards will well and truly collapse.

In fact, hiding his squeaky voice is the only true PR success Beckham’s handlers have managed in the States.