How David Beckham and Lionel Messi are helping the US defeat Saudi Arabia in football duel
The football battle between Saudi Arabia and the US involves political, religious and social values. But David Beckham’s celebrity contacts and Instagram clout is proving decisive, writes HELEN RUMBELOW.
For all the profound geopolitical clashes between the United States and the Soviet Union, some credit to the ending of the Cold War must go to the fact that one side offered more opportunity to wear denim jeans.
The same effect is now being played out in a running battle that has been simmering for the whole of 2023, a cool war between Saudi Arabia and the United States – with America’s side led, unexpectedly, by our own David Beckham.
Will the historians of the future look back at this next profound clash of political, religious and social values, and use as their teaching aid Beckham’s Instagram account? Let’s move quickly on from answering that by pulling up exhibit A: a photo from Beckham’s social media celebrating Lionel Messi’s triumph in his new American team. Here Beckham is pictured putting his arm around the actress Reese Witherspoon, who wears a denim miniskirt.
Reese Witherspoon 🤠David Beckham pic.twitter.com/oroRJQM70J
— Inter Miami CF (@InterMiamiCF) August 20, 2023
This is a different kind of battlefield, which in this case happens to be football fields. OK, at first this seems to be about “just football”. Just football, or rather Saudi Arabia’s frenzied signing of the most gifted footballers who now have rather end-of-career sore knees and so will accept vast sums of money to play in a sweltering nation with no footballing legacy.
In the past year alone Cristiano Ronaldo has moved to the desert kingdom, and more than 20 high-profile players followed, most recently the Brazilian Neymar. Each of them, with some of the largest-ever Instagram followings and incalculable influence over the next generation, moved to a place where life, and particularly women’s lives, are heavily restricted. But when the time came for Messi, at the grand old age of 36, to give up the European leagues, he didn’t take the offer from Saudi Arabia. He chose instead to sign with Inter Miami, the Florida club that has Beckham as its public face and co-owner.
There are of course personal and professional reasons for Messi’s decision we won’t know, but from the output from Messi and his new friends the Beckhams, it comes down to these two crucial factors: women and alcohol. Unlike Saudi Arabia, one of the most notoriously oppressive countries in which to be a woman or get a beer, at Inter Miami Beckham holds court at matches and post-match celebrations thronging with cocktails and celebrities, at least as many women as men, and mostly powerful women at that.
Now we know that Beckham doesn’t much go for politics: he was an ambassador for the Qatar World Cup last autumn and kept his lips tight over their record on human rights. But as an accidental ambassador for the apogee of American celebrity culture – good and bad – Beckham gladhands tirelessly in an Inter Miami blazer and couldn’t be more effective. Two years ago the Beckhams bought an pounds 18.5 million Miami penthouse in a tower designed by the British architect Zaha Hadid, complete with helipad and Atlantic views. Then their eldest son, Brooklyn, married the heiress and actress Nicola Peltz at the home of her billionaire father, down the road in Palm Beach. Suddenly the Beckhams were established as power players in Florida, one of the hottest states both literally and politically. Florida is now home to Donald Trump and his most ferocious supporters, but we can detect David and Victoria’s influence in the fact that Inter Miami play in kit that is lovely, camp, flamingo pink.
Leveraging his contacts across sport, fashion, pop music and show business, and finally his latest Colonel Parker role in guaranteeing access to Messi, his star signing, Beckham has made an invite to chink glasses in VIP hospitality at Inter Miami a new part of the American celebrity Instagram roster. His court ranges from the basketball superstar LeBron James to Nicole Kidman, who posed with her arm around Beckham. Chief among their supporters is Kim Kardashian, who stands, like a Statue of Liberty in bodycon, at the opposite end of a spectrum to her black-swathed female Saudi counterparts. Kardashian, an old friend of Victoria who supports her at events for Beckham’s new beauty range, was pictured at Messi’s debut game for Inter Miami. David Beckham put an arm around her shoulder.
On another match night for the team in July, Victoria Beckham again used her Instagram as a kind of autograph book for the celebrities that turned out: “Another incredible night in Miami!!!! Friends came out again to support.” This with her photos of the singer Camila Cabello with her daughter, Harper, and the rapper Sean Combs.
The supermodel Karlie Kloss has been friends with David Beckham since they were both in an Adidas campaign in 2017. Kloss is married to Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law and former senior adviser to Trump. However, Joshua Kushner is clear he does not share his brother’s political opinions. Just weeks after Kloss gave birth to her second child, the couple made it a priority to show up at this Inter Miami game.
Serena Williams, old friend to the Beckhams and Kardashians, has also been pictured at a match. Her appearance raises the question of Prince Harry and Meghan and whether the Sussexes have fallen out of this celebrity group. Williams organised Meghan’s baby shower for Prince Archie in 2019, but Meghan was not seen attending Williams’s baby shower this month. Likewise, the Beckhams attended the Sussexes’ wedding, but while the Williams sisters went to the wedding of Brooklyn Beckham to Peltz, the Sussexes did not attend.
And now for Messi himself. “So this is what America tastes like,” he posted on his Instagram, announcing his deal with a beer manufacturer in advance of his move to Miami. Next, three weeks ago, came a very blurry set of photos of Messi and his wife, Antonela Roccuzzo, leaning drunkenly against Victoria and David Beckham in a Florida restaurant, which Messi captioned “evening with friends” and a wine glass emoji. Ronaldo, from Saudi Arabia, where alcohol is illegal, said “the Saudi league is better” when he was asked about whether he was jealous of Messi’s move to the Florida club. But is Messi enjoying baiting Ronaldo a little here?
Again, Roccuzzo posted a shot of her and Victoria Beckham in a different Miami restaurant and wearing a whole new set of bodycon dresses – bodycon dresses seem to be both very important in Miami and for my argument – with a bunch of cocktails in the foreground and captioned by just the word “girls” and a heart emoji.
This caption is mildly ironic: Roccuzzo is a model and Beckham has long moved from singer to taking the helm of her fashion and beauty brand. A life, or an evening, like theirs would be impossible for the wives of footballers who went to Saudi Arabia.
And so we are back to Beckham with that first photo with Witherspoon. Beckham, endearingly sunburnt in his suit, looks like a schoolboy on the first day of summer term. Witherspoon has at various points been named Hollywood’s highest-earning actress, among the top 100 of the world’s most powerful women and now as one of the most successful producers in film; Time Magazine has twice named her in the top 100 most influential people in the world.
Witherspoon wasn’t there as a reminder that not all women are free to wear what they like, denim miniskirt or otherwise; she was there in her role as one of the owners of the Nashville Soccer Club. Beckham stoops to get down to Witherspoon’s height for the camera: as club owners they’re equals. In the Cold War it wasn’t just that young people longed for denim jeans, they longed for the conditions that led to denim jeans. Somehow Beckham and the famous women in his life mean more than just the usual social climbing. In the battle between Saudi Arabian and American football, this is power.
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