Beckham revealed: part 1

Dusk is beginning to settle over the crowded streets of downtown Tokyo, but in the only hotel suite in the city to boast its own private swimming pool, David Beckham is looking decidedly agitated. The man who has suddenly become the world's most famous footballer certainly isn't swimming. He is walking up and down almost shouting into his mobile phone, while his wife Victoria looks on. For one of the few times in the 28 years of his life, this most golden of British sporting icons is close to panicking.

Just as Posh and Becks, as the world now knows them, had boarded their plane at London's Heathrow a matter of hours before, to start a nine-day promotional tour in Asia, the England captain had learnt that his transfer to Spanish champions Real Madrid was complete - and now the reality was beginning to hit home.

'It'll mean leaving everything behind,' he is saying anxiously to one of his former colleagues at Manchester United. 'The houses, Victoria's parents, my mum and sisters, my Dad, everything.'

The emotion in his voice is all too clear. 'I know I was expecting it, but it's different when it actually happens. I thought it wouldn't happen for a year, maybe two.'

The truth, revealed here for the first time, is that Beckham had serious second thoughts about the move. But this was only the latest chapter in his life to be shaped by the two powerful influences who have struggled over his destiny for so long.

One is Sir Alex Ferguson, the dour, profane, ruthless manager who has guided him since he was a boy of 14. The other is, of course, a brittle, glamorous, volatile yet equally ruthless pop diva - his wife, Victoria Beckham.

How this titanic struggle unfolded is at the heart of who David Beckham is, why he behaves as he does and - as we shall see - how Ferguson came to believe that a boy he had treated like a son was driven to betray him by the woman he refers to as 'that f***ing girl'.

The 'betrayal' could not have been more calculated to launch Ferguson into one of his monumental rages - for he believes it contributed to United's defeat last season by Real Madrid, a loss which denied Ferguson his dream of winning the European Cup final at Old Trafford.

'Posh won' is how one insider summed up the culmination of the struggle. Another confides: 'Ferguson had become fed up with what he called the "circus" that surrounded Posh and Becks, so he pushed him out.

'Alex thought he was paying too much attention to what was going on off the field and not enough to what was happening on it. And he hates Victoria with a passion.'

It was Ferguson's brutal disposal of Beckham that led to the player's anguish in that Japanese hotel suite. But as her husband continues his fretful monologue, Mrs Beckham can control herself no longer.

'Come on, Babes,' she tells him, urging him to shut one of the many mobile phones provided for him by one of his major sponsors, Vodafone.

'You've coped with harder things. Remember in 1998, how badly you felt when you were sent off in the World Cup?'

She doesn't add, though she certainly could have done: 'And you know how long I've been telling you to get out from under that tyrant Alex Ferguson.'

There's a pause as a frown passes across her husband's fashionably stubbled face. 'You sure, Babes?' he says softly.

'Of course I am. It's the best thing that could have happened. You're bigger than Ferguson, bigger than anyone in football, and you are going to be one of the biggest sports stars on the planet, as big as Tiger Woods or Michael Schumacher. They make £40million a year - so can you.'

In the days that follow, as the hype and glamour of the tour come to overwhelm him, Beckham's fears begin to subside as his wife and his agents remind him of the many financial benefits he is likely to reap as a result of his move.

Thoughts of buying more cars to add to his present collection of 14 begin to flood through his mind - for though David Beckham may like to play the naive in his carefully managed press conferences, the reality is that he is a stubborn, determined and ambitious man, driven by a wife who is even more so.

But as this series reveals, the overpowering ambition which has created the Beckham circus has also alienated many of his England team-mates, and even contributed to a rift with his own father.

And the glittering rewards of his new world can never quite erase the central conflict of Beckham's life: how he was eventually forced to choose between his wife and his manager, and how finally, like a father who

abandons his own son, Ferguson brutally cut the bonds himself.

AFTER their comically kitsch marriage in an Irish castle, where they were pictured perched on matching purple thrones, it became clear to those who observed Beckham that he was utterly in thrall to his wife.

Even the most light-hearted slight would be met with a fierce defence of the woman he phones many times a day, every day.

How fierce became clear to one football writer, Rob Shepherd, in February 2002. Beckham had recently finished second in the World Player of the Year vote, which just happened to coincide with Victoria's failure to reach the No 1 spot with her latest single.

At a press conference, Shepherd made a joke of this, remarking how both of them appeared incapable of securing the top spot - and Beckham was furious.

His aggressive PR woman, Caroline McAteer, contacted Shepherd and, it has been said, threatened to 'have it out' with his proprietor.

But that was not the end of the matter. England were due to play Holland in a friendly in Amsterdam that week and just prior to the team's departure, Beckham gave a press conference as England's captain.

It was a goodnatured exchange between the country's leading football writers and the national team skipper, but just when it seemed the press conference had reached its conclusion, Beckham suddenly turned to Shepherd and remarked coldly: 'Just one more thing, Rob. You can write what you like about my football but I don't like it when you bring my family into it.

'What do you know about music?' demanded Beckham. 'How many people in your family have had a No 1 record?'

To Beckham's horror, Shepherd was able to reply 'One' - he happened to have a sister who was the main backing singer on the Buggles' No 1 hit Video Killed The Radio Star. Even Beckham managed to laugh at that.

But it was a telling illustration that the Beckhams had become a package: you didn't get one without the other and, as Victoria's career stuttered and faded, she would be riding the wave of Beckham's burgeoning celebrity, whatever Alex Ferguson said.

The battle between Victoria Beckham and Alex Ferguson for the soul of David Beckham was joined in the summer of 1999 as Posh and Becks planned their marriage.

Just before the wedding, Beckham asked the then Manchester United chairman Martin Edwards for two extra days off after the wedding so they could get far away enough on their honeymoon to escape the paparazzi.

When Ferguson heard that his now famous star had gone over his head to ask for extra time off, he went nuclear. The conversation remains etched in Victoria Beckham's mind to this day - she calls it 'vindictive and unforgivable'. But it delivers an extraordinary insight into the power struggle to come.

Not only could her new husband not have his two extra days, decreed Ferguson, he had to be back in less than a week.

'But Gaffer,' Beckham told his boss, 'the rest of the team are either in Australia or on holiday. The only people I'll be training with are the reserves.'

'You've got it,' Ferguson replied. 'What's the point in that? Basically, you're calling me in for no reason.'

'Don't you talk to me like that,' Ferguson snapped.

'Please, Gaffer, I've just got married. All I want is a honeymoon like anyone else. We're totally under siege here. We've just got to get away.'

'So get away,' Ferguson told him.

'But you're calling me in for next Saturday,' Beckham protested.

'That's right,' said Ferguson. 'But we can't go anywhere in less than a week,' Beckham replied.

The answer from Ferguson was ruthless: 'That's your problem, David. I don't give a s***.'

Not long afterwards, in September 1999, Beckham appeared alongside his new wife at Jade Jagger's jewellery launch party at St Martin's Hotel in Covent Garden, London.

He was due to fly out from Manchester with his United team-mates early the following morning for a Champions League encounter with the Austrian team Sturm Graz, but was photographed late that night alongside Victoria.

It emerged that he was driven back in the early hours to the family apartment in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, and after only a few hours' sleep reported for duty at Manchester airport.

Ferguson was furious and there were reports - never confirmed - of a £50,000 fine.

Daily Mail football writer Matt Lawton wrote a story on the morning of the game condemning Beckham for a lack of professionalism in attending the party in the first place.

Beckham was not amused with the piece, and on the flight home from Austria immediately after the game, he came down the plane to confront Lawton.

The pair stood by the toilets at the back of the aircraft for about ten minutes and discussed the situation.

Beckham remained calm throughout, but was flanked by the intimidating presence of United's then head of security, Ned Kelly (who later left the club after being accused of dealing in black market tickets).

He was beginning to apply the lesson his wife had learned the hard way in the Spice Girls: control everything.

As the Beckhams became ever more celebrated, so Ferguson came increasingly to resent the former Posh Spice's influence over the boy he had so carefully nurtured as a teenager.

Indeed the anger was so great it was almost as if he saw the girl stealing a surrogate son.

Ferguson has long said that he can 'always tell when that f***ing girl has been up here' (in Manchester). He felt she was taking Beckham away from football and 'turning his head', as he put it to a friend, 'with all this glamour'.

In an interview with the American magazine Sports Illustrated this year, Ferguson confirmed as much, claiming that Beckham had become a 'different person' after falling for Posh Spice.

'David was blessed with great stamina,' he said. 'The best of all the players I've had. After training, he'd always be practising, practising, practising. But his life changed when he met his wife. She's in pop and David got another image. He's developed this fashion thing. I saw his transition to a different person.'

Victoria always gave as good as she got. 'He (Ferguson) barely said more than "Hello" to me in four years,' she has insisted, privately telling her family she was going to make sure 'that David finally stood up to him'.

When her father was asked in a radio interview what his daughter thought about Ferguson, his reply was: 'Erm . . . can I say the famous no comment?'

One thing is certain: David Beckham will do what his wife tells him. 'Come on, Babes,' she cajoles. 'It'll be fun' - and he nods, or smiles gently, like a small boy who can't quite believe he's married to a Spice Girl. The unashamed family man is as ambitious for his wife as she is for herself.

Though it may not be entirely polite to say so, there is also no doubt Beckham still finds his wife intensely sexually attractive, admitting on several occasions: 'I can't keep my hands off her.'

So much so that he was recently spotted in one of the spicy Agent Provocateur lingerie shops buying a whip with a diamante-encrusted handle. She's repeatedly described him as 'an animal in bed'.

As Posh's influence steadily grew - alongside her appetite to kickstart her fading pop career with the help of his celebrity - so Ferguson fumed, convinced that the pair's business ambitions were overshadowing David's commitment to football.

Ferguson could see only too well that it was Posh first, the England captaincy second and Manchester United a poor third in the couple's pecking order.

The worldwide publicity tour they took this summer - rushing first to the U.S., where the renowned television interviewer Barbara Walters dubbed them the 'hottest couple in the western hemisphere, the biggest British couple since Charles and Diana' - only confirmed Ferguson's view: Beckham was now more trouble than he was worth.

FERGUSON would rather that the boys he nurtured in his youth team, like Beckham, Gary and Phil Neville, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes, married - in the words of one close friend - 'innocent girls from Salford' not pop stars hooked on fame who had a 'high-powered army of public relations advisers' into the bargain.

No one knew that better, or resented it more, than Victoria Beckham.

But what Ferguson saw as the most unforgivable betrayal, and what convinced him that Beckham must go, happened as Manchester United prepared to play the home leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid in April this year.

Ferguson had suspected negotiations were going on between Beckham's agents SFX and Real Madrid, but he did not know.

The United boss had decided Beckham wouldn't be in the starting line-up, and told him so on the morning of the game.

Few at the club knew of his omission - yet by lunchtime Real Madrid were broadcasting the fact on their radio station and coach Vincente del Bosque had reorganised his own side accordingly.

It didn't take Ferguson long to spot that someone must have told Real, and he immediately suspected that Beckham had told SFX and that somehow or other the information had leaked to the Spanish club.

The acid-tongued Ferguson went ballistic. Now he knew someone from SFX was talking to Real - about Beckham.

What's more, he felt that the leak had given Real a tactical advantage: they were already 3-1 up from the first leg in Madrid, and soon extended their lead at Old Trafford.

To compound his fury, Ferguson was obliged to bring Beckham on as substitute and United went on to win the match 4-3 - but lost the tie overall.

The Champions League final was to be played at Old Trafford, and Ferguson privately admits he still dreams about what it would have been like to lead his own team out there. He blames 'Beckham's people' for the ruination of that dream.

Within minutes of learning that her husband had been left out of the starting line-up, Victoria was on the phone to him, telling him he was being 'humiliated' and following the description with a long line of choice expletives.

Beckham responded in his usual way: the following morning he resorted to retail therapy, spending a cool £10,000 in one visit to Emporio Armani in Manchester.

AT THE same time as negotiating with Real Madrid, SFX were also preparing the schedule for Beckham's Far East tour - a project that had been in development for months and required the most detailed planning to meet the demands of the major sponsors who paid their client millions of pounds.

Vodafone and Adidas in Japan had to be satisfied, as did the oilmaker Castrol in Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, not to mention companies in Japan.

Indeed, the planning was so detailed that SFX created a private and confidential 'DB Asia Tour Bible' to detail exactly what the player would be doing for every moment of every single day of the nine-day tour.

It also identified what clothes he would be wearing at specific moments, and included scripted answers to any potential questions he might encounter from the Press, written for him by former tabloid editor Stuart Higgins.

One was: 'What do you say about criticism that it's your fault that Manchester United want to ditch you - because of your showbiz lifestyle?'

The scripted response was: 'That's more of a question for Manchester United. I do not believe I have done anything irresponsible.'

Approved by his wife, it was a clear sign of just how much control others have over the pronouncements of the lad whose school report once suggested he 'finds it difficult to concentrate'.

There was to be no repeat of the famous gaffe on his first appearance on Michael Parkinson's television show in 2000: 'I want Brooklyn to be christened, I'm just not sure what religion yet.'

NEWS of the Far East trip further infuriated Ferguson, who was holidaying with his wife in the south of France after the end of the football season.

He thought his player should have been resting rather than ' junketing round the world'.

It was with some relish, then, that Ferguson, sipping a glass of the rather good red wine he favours, made a call to order the selling of Beckham.

SFX secured the deal they had been planning all along with Real Madrid, though it had come a year or two earlier than they had originally anticipated.

Once again it was Victoria who settled her husband's mind, telling him: 'Just concentrate on the football for a while.'

And she will now be the one to influence his future, as Ferguson used to. The shy, almost faltering persona Beckham has adopted off the pitch is the product of his wife's tuition. It was she who helped turn him into the Greta Garbo of the beautiful game - always 'wanting to be alone' - drawing on her own experiences. 'Saying less is always more,' she tells him repeatedly.

There could be no clearer indication that Beckham has moved outside Ferguson's orbit than that he and his wife have now struck a deal with the man who shaped and managed the Spice Girls, and created Pop Idol, Simon Fuller.

Fuller is determined to make them more famous than some of the goods they are paid a fortune to promote. 'The combination of Victoria's glamour and David's sex appeal and sporting prowess could, over the long term, create a $1billion brand,' he said in a rare interview earlier this month.

'The Beckham brand is about aspiration and family values, the couple who came from nothing to achieve their dreams.'

Chillingly, one of his aides later added: 'Simon wants to make the Beckhams the most famous family in the world, and that will include Brooklyn and Romeo (the couple's two sons) when they are older.'

One person who is in complete agreement is, of course, Victoria Beckham, who told the New York Times on their American trip in May: 'I think we have such a strong message between the two of us.

'There are so many things that interest us - fashion, make-up. I'm kind of looking at the big picture now and thinking, "Yes, the music's great, the football's great, but this is about the big picture - because obviously you've got the sport, the music, the children, the marriage - there are so many areas you could hit.'

She certainly intends to. For there is nothing sacred to the relentless Mrs B.

The astounded interviewer concluded that she came across 'like a sharp object flying at you, a wedge of nerve and ambition and self-awareness, who doesn't mind including her marriage and her children in "the big picture".'

And with her musical career in tatters, the most potent weapon to help her achieve those ambitions is, of course, her husband, who some sceptics are beginning to say is already too big for his size ten boots.

But there have been casualties of Beckham's ascent - some would prefer to say descent - into celebrity.

The most poignant victim is his kitchen-fitter father, Ted. The man who first inspired his son to become a footballer by his own performances as a player, and who used to give his son lessons afterwards, never once missed one of his matches in England. But now he is relegated to the sidelines of his son's life and career.

Never one of Victoria Beckham's favourite people - some say she thought the East London-based workman 'common' - Ted always talked to his son several times a day on his mobile phone in the days before he met Posh Spice.

But in the years since then, that intimate father-son relationship has steadily weakened - partly as a result of Beckham's own fame, but, more significantly, as a result of Victoria's ever increasing hold on her husband.

At Christmas in 1997, for example, the first the couple who were to become the Beckhams spent together, Ted and his wife Sandra were not among the guests at a celebration dinner held at the ritzy Midland Crowne Plaza hotel in Manchester. Posh's parents, Jackie and Tony Adams, were there.

It was the first sign of how things were to develop in the years to come. But Ted Beckham continued to watch his son play at every possible opportunity, even starting his own company to allow him to change his schedule to fit in with David's games.

As his son was drawn ever more steadily into his wife's world and family, however, and with the arrival of their son Brooklyn in March 1999, so father Ted found his relationship with David ebbing away.

'David became part of Team Posh,' explains one former aide. 'Victoria was always very close to her parents, and as soon as Brooklyn came along they took over almost all the nanny duties - which David accepted.'

Whenever the couple took trips abroad, for example, it would be Jackie Adams and Posh's sister Louise who would travel with the Beckhams and their new son - a tradition that has strengthened since the birth of Romeo a year ago.

And though David insists he remains devoted to his parents, and grandparents, there is no denying he pays less attention to his father now than he did as a teenager training with the Manchester United squad.

Indeed, the recent separation of Ted from his wife Sandra, which he suggested was partly the result of the pressures of 'being David's dad', has only accentuated the gap between the player and his father.

'David was always going to be a bit closer to Sandra,' says one family friend, 'because she was a back-up for Jackie when it came to the children. It's inevitable that a child takes sides, and David chose his mum.'

All this has been exacerbated by Beckham's departure from United. His father has taken his son's move very badly indeed, saying he has 'lost' his son.

'I still have to work,' he said recently, 'and I can't afford to pop over to Madrid every week.'

The man who once seemed to live his life through his talented son now seems to be feeling very sorry for himself, saying: 'His football was my life for the last 14 or 15 years and now it's over. I don't know what I'll do, and don't know what the family will do'.

Ted Beckham was due to have travelled to Spain last weekend to watch his son but pulled out at the last minute, having apparently 'lost his passport'.

The falling-out is a bitter commentary on Beckham's extraordinary success and wealth, but it is clear that for Victoria and David, the conquest of Planet Beckham must go on.

As Beckham made his home debut as a Real Madrid player, his mother and elder son were there to watch him. But his ambitious wife was away in New York, a Hertfordshire mother-of-two making a bizarre bid to become a rap star.

For as we shall see on Monday, David Beckham is the battering ram the former Posh Spice is using to knock on the world's door with a bizarre new musical image, and some questionable friends - and nothing is going to stop her.