The cult of David Beckham

Stuart Pearce appears to have put an end to David Beckham's Olympic dream. And by dream, I mean chance to hog the limelight and sell a few more bottles of perfume or pairs of pants. Pearce, for once, appears to have seen some sense and has named Micah Richards, Ryan Giggs and Craig Bellamy as the over-age players for the Great Britain football squad.

Needless to say, morons fans all over the world are up in arms. As Twitter wordsmith Jack Maca puts it "DAVID BECKHAM IS NOT IN THE SQUAD????? i hate stuart pearce! i hate the olympics and we should all boycott it ! #lovefordavid disgrace!" and "stuart pearce sucks donkey dick! worst decision in footballing history" It's fair to say Points of View will be getting a nasty letter.

But should we really be surprised? Beckham has spent the last five years in Los Angeles, playing celebrity friends with Tom Cruise, whilst occasionally kicking a pig's bladder at Landon Donovan for the Disney Hollywood Super Friends Galaxy. He has played in World Cups and European Championships, and generally brought the national team into the realms of Heat magazine. Shouldn't someone else have a go at big-boys football with Olympics?

Beckham had dreamed of meeting John Barrowman and his beard

Richards, Giggs and Bellamy aren't exactly short of baubles between them, and the Welsh pair were never likely to play in a major tournament, so why begrudge them at all?

The outrage on behalf of Beckham is hilarious, but sadly predictable. Does he really deserve a place in the squad purely because he went on a jolly to Singapore to schmooze with some IOC cronies in 2005? Or because there are still hundreds of thousands of unsold tickets for the football, although the fact that one such match includes Senegal vs the UAE in Coventry pretty much explains that fact.

Beckham was once a decent footballer, making a career out of doing some things very well, and having nice hair. He won pretty much everything that could be won with clubs, and made a couple of quid as well. Does he need a legacy to include an Olympic medal?

Beckham models the Team GB away kit

In much the same way that 'Arry Redknapp was overlooked for the England job, some (admittedly not all) of the tabloid press are saying it's an outrage, that he deserves it for all he's done for the game. But then he's also got to take responsibility for the popularity of the Hoxton Fin haircut, children named after where they were conceived (has there been a child named KFC yet?) and men wearing sarongs.

But then he did kick Diego Simeone, so on second thoughts...

Becks just hanging around East London