Do we like David Beckham?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A long record as a gay-friendly mainstream figure, dented by a paid Qatar ambassador job he still defends.
Beckham's story, as he tells it, starts in London's East End as a working-class kid who loved football above everything else. At his Walk of Fame ceremony in June 2026 he said he never imagined an honour like it, and called Tom Cruise “the greatest movie star of our time.” That is the pitch: the local boy who made good, and he still plays it that way.
His one proper brush with the courts was a very modern sin. In May 2019 he pleaded guilty at Bromley Magistrates' Court to using a handheld phone while driving in central London after a member of the public photographed him. He copped a six-month ban, a £750 fine and six penalty points on top of six he already had. Embarrassing, not villainous.
The big mark on the harm check is Qatar. He took a paid ambassador role for the 2022 World Cup in a country with anti-LGBTQ+ laws, and Will Young and Joe Lycett were among those who criticised him for it. In 2023 he said he'd spoken with LGBTQ+ people there who told him it was among the safest World Cups in a long time, and told people to “Let the football do the talking.” Where you land depends on whether you read that as a fair account of what he heard or as a convenient line for a lucrative deal.
The backstory makes the Qatar call sting more. Attitude notes he was the first Premier League footballer to cover the magazine, back in 2002, and quotes him saying “It shouldn't matter what people are and it never has done to me.” In 2007 Le Saux alleged Beckham used an anti-gay slur, which a spokesperson denied. Attitude's own verdict on his allyship was “a mixed bag.”
Beyond that, the record is thin. I found no words from him on trans issues, climate or migrants, and nothing tying him to conspiracy theories or culture-war grifting. I couldn't open a dated page on his charity work, so I haven't counted it here. The lack of nasty words counts for something, but it isn't a clean sheet.
So, would we support him? Mostly yes. He has a long record as a mainstream figure comfortable with gay fans, and nothing in what I read shows him treating people badly. But he took Qatar's money and has stood by it, and that's why he sits at a six and not a nine.