David Beckham Tells Miami Soccer Fans To Do As He Says, Not As He Has Done

Following up on all of the discussion about David Beckham bringing a MLS team to Miami, writer Darren Weber from Soccerly offered an intriguing viewpoint regarding David Beckham recently questioning whether fans in Miami should do as he says and support their local team, or not, since Beckham hardly has a track record of doing the same.

The Leytonstone-born Englishman was born in east London. His local team in the area was Leyton Orient, but Beckham decided to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and support Tottenham Hotspur. However, since both of his parents were fanatical Manchester United supporters — even though the club was 211 miles away from London — Beckham grew into becoming a Manchester United fan.

Weber writes:

“His parents, both Londoners, were fanatical Manchester United supporters who would frequently travel to Old Trafford from London to attend the team’s home matches so it is easy to understand how David inherited his parents’ love of the Red Devils.

“He inherited eschewing the values of locality and community from his parents when he made the very first big decision a young Englishman makes by himself; which football team to follow. That’s fair enough. There are Manchester United fans all over the planet with no connections to the City of Manchester.

“There’s one difference between Beckham and them. They are not asking every other citizen to be locally loyal so that they make money.

“Is a man who followed his parents’ passions over local ties, also the man to ask Floridians, many of whose recent ancestors come from afar, to do the exact opposite? It was an unnecessary arrow to fire from Beckham and indicates that he seems to have whitewashed or at least forgotten his own past while traveling through the constant and frequent re shapings of his own brand.”

What are your thoughts about Beckham wanting local fans to support their team, especially if many of these fans have already supported a completely different team given that MLS has been extinct in South Florida for 13 years?