EDITOR’S LETTER

The trick when putting together a Fourfourtwo cover story is to try to predict who and what you, the reader, will want to know about roughly three months down the line. Obviously this is easier said than done, with the myriad of problems that can derail a cover story in that time. This is doubly difficult when the issue in question is set to come out midway through a World Cup, like this one. Not only do we not know how, for example, England will be getting on as we come out (strolling serenely to the semis, right?) the World Cup has a way of putting all the transfer activity on hold until Florentino Perez buys the tournament’s star player and the dust settles on all the subsequent transfer activity. So we can’t even look past the goings-on in Russia until next month.

Luckily for us – and not for the first time in his career – David Beckham has stepped up to save the day. Turn to page 34 to find out how his quest to step into football ownership has become a fascinating mixture of politics, football and fame, before reliving the story of his season after France 98, when he became public enemy No.1 after his red card against Argentina. Cheers, Becks!