Another English soccer legend is retiring. David Beckham announced hisretirement from pro soccer not long after his former coach, Sir Alex Ferguson, made thesame announcement.
After two more games, Beckham will be hanging up his cleats, but the star athlete was sure to rack up a few more titles before he cleans out his locker. Thanks to Paris Saint-Germain' s recent win to claim the Ligue 1 title, Beckham is now the only person to have won four national club championships in four different leagues in four different countries. He's also the first English player to score at three consecutive World Cup finals, and he's been honored by the Queen of England. Not a bad rap for a guy that kicks a ball around for a living, but there's a lot more to Beckham's success than what simply lies on the field.
"If you had told me as a young boy I would have played for and won trophies with my boyhood club Manchester United, proudly captained and played for my country over 100 times and lined up for some of the biggest clubs in the world, I would have told you it was a fantasy," he said, the BBC reports. "I'm fortunate to have realized those dreams."
While millions of faithful soccer fans worldwide will remember Becks for scoring this goal or that, everyone else will regard him as one of the only elite soccer players to break through mainstream media and one of the world's most saught-after athletes. While most of Beckham's personal brand success comes from his soccer career, his star-studded marriage to former Spice Girl-turned-designer Victoria Beckham as well as his suave appearance and personality have won him top spots among the world's biggest and best brand campaigns.
The mild-mannered star has also been lucky to enough to have impeccable brand choice, a move that has arguably won him approval by a wide birth of consumers. Sales of Beckham's jerseys and shoes alone have generated over $2.3 billion in revenue, EPLTalk.com reports.
The father of four notably worked with Sainsbury's to help get kids to exercise in schools, and for his adult fans, stripped down to his skivvies for ads with H&M and Emporio Armani. He played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” by kicking a soccer ball against an oversized Samsung Galaxy and he's kicked a ball around on the beach for Pepsi , not to mention his longtime relationship with Adidas.
Don't let his retirement from the sport fool you into thinking his brand is retiring, too. Earlier this year, Beckham was employed by China to help them put a good face on the country's soccer association after a stream of scandals, and OK! Magazine reports that Beckham recently signed with Sky Sports, a subscription TV sports brand, for a five-year, $30 million gig as a brand ambassador.
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