Beckham’s anger over knighthood snub exposed
● Hacked e-mails were ‘out of context’ and an ‘attempt to blackmail footballer’
Hackers behind the leak of e-mails in which David Beckham complains about being snubbed for a knighthood reportedly demanded €1 million from the sports agency representing him.
Police in Portugal, where Doyen Sports has an office, have been investigating the attempted blackmail for a year.
Beckham was not the explicit target of the hack, a source told the Daily Mirror, but was “caught in the crossfire”.
A source said: “They approached by e-mail and attempted to meet via another third party. They said we have all this information and you have to pay up. It was blackmail, pure and simple.”
The leaked e-mails included one in which Beckham lambasts the honours committee which decides on recipients as “a bunch of c***s” and brands the honours system as “a f ****** joke”.
A representative of the former England captain dismissed the messages as “outdated material taken out of context from hacked and doctored private e-mails from a third-party server”.
He said the material “gives a deliberately inaccurate picture”.
Beckham was reportedly on
0 David Beckham’s image tarnished but sport agency says leaked e-mails were blackmail attempt the verge of receiving a knighthood in the 2014 New Year’s Honours list but HM Revenue and Customs placed a red flag on his nomination due to his involvement in an alleged tax avoidance scheme.
In response to his PR chief’s e-mail notifying him of the red flag, Beckham reportedly wrote: “The flag has no truth behind it as we didn’t (do) nothing wrong everything is and was above board... C***s.”
Also in the leaked e-mails, he is said to have questioned the OBE given to singer Katherine Jenkins, referring to a past admission of drug taking.
In response, a representative defended Jenkins, issuing a “fact sheet” on her charity work and success in the music industry. He said: “With regards to the taking of coke which Katherine has courageously publicly admitted with great honesty – this was when she was in her early 20s still a student – over a decade before she was awarded her OBE and started her recording career.”
Other e-mails reportedly saw Beckham react negatively to a suggested donation to Unicef, of which he is a goodwill ambassador.
Beckham was given an OBE for services to football in 2003 on the recommendation of then prime minister Tony Blair. His wife Victoria got the same honour for services to the fashion industry in the most recent New Year Honours list.