Beckham hoping to take in England ties
DaviD Beckham is expected to cheer on Gareth Southgate’s side in Russia in between his major League Soccer commitments.
Beckham is hoping to attend the potential quarter-final match in Samara next Saturday and definitely the final in moscow a fortnight tomorrow if fourth favourites england progress that far.
But he will miss england in the semi-final due to him being in miami for an important announcement on Thursday week for his new mLS side.
The Beckham consortium, who have been searching for a suitable site for a new ground for a tortuous five years, have now settled on a venue near miami airport next to a public golf course.
Backers are in place to fund a new 35,000-capacity stadium together with a hotel, residential and shopping development, with the golf course being relocated. Beckham needs support from the miami authorities for the plans to go to a public vote in November. But the Beckham team are still on course to enter mLS in march 2020, spending a season playing at a temporary ground. The Fa are stage-managing interaction between players and media to a greater extent than ever before during the World cup even in the supposed free-for-all of the post-match mixed zone.
after the Belgium defeat, team operations co- ordinator emily Webb was roped in by the communications department to help escort players through the area as if the team cannot make up their own minds whether to stop and talk.
in contrast Belgium duo marouane Fellaini and Romelu Lukaku talked to the Press when asked.
World Cup fever resulted in the dead rubber against Belgium still attracting the best viewing figure of the tournament with a peak of 18.7million on ITV. The bonanza number justified ITV’s decision in their alternate choice of games with BBC to go for the last-16 match, which should now bring in an even bigger figure, rather than one of the opening two group games.