Ellee Seymour

Is Beckham worth it, $250 million over the next five years? Did Madrid get their money’s worth? Wasn’t be sitting on the bench there quite a bit?

This just confirms that football makes people behave in crazy ways, I’ve seen it from the touchline so many times. Becks isn’t even a star over in LA. When people there were interviewed on last night’s news, many of them said they had never heard of him.

He will be earning £70,000 a day as LA Galaxy’s “designated player”. I don’t even want to begin to imagine what good deeds could benefit from some of that dosh. What can one person do with so much money?  There are only so many designer frocks Victoria can fritter it away on with their new Hollywood lifestyle.

I don’t believe it is obscene to earn such a vast salary, but it is obscene to waste it. I would like to see Becks follow in Oprah’s footsteps. Earlier this month she opened a $40 million school in South Africa for disadvantaged girls which she had funded.

Football is an international language, kids love it all over the world. I would like to see Beckham extend his UK Academy (which incidentally also has a base in LA) to equally deprived areas around the world on a not-for-profit or scholarship basis. It could well help discover many world class players who would never otherwise have been given the chance. It would make a dream come true for thousands of star-struck Beckham fans who just kick a ball about in the street and don’t have the same opportunities as others.

Btw, does anyone know what has happened to Sven, has he found a new job?

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Should principal ballet dancer Simone Clarke be sacked from her job with the English National Ballet because of her membership with the BNP?

Anti-racism campaigners United Against Fascism thinks so and will be protesting at today’s performance of Gisele at the London Coliseum. They state:

“We are calling on all those who have an appreciation for the arts, music, and dance to demand that the promotion of racist and fascist politics are incompatible with a leading arts institution such as the English National Ballet, to speak out against the association of artists with the BNP, and that Simone Clarke should be removed from her position.”

Simone obviously had her personal reasons for joining, citing “mass immigration”, crime and increased taxes. She can hardly be accused of being racist herself as her partner and co-dancer Yat is a Cuban immigrant whose father is Chinese.

The UAF believes that the BNP is exploiting Simone’s membership in order to promote and prettify their extreme right wing politics. I don’t think she would go along with that kind of manipulation.

Simone insists there is no contradiction in her choice of a foreign partner or in her decision to work with one of the most ethnically diverse ballet troupes in the world. And she says that, for her, the issue is simple: mainstream politicians are failing to tackle the issues that worry people most, while the BNP is promising firm action.

“I think the BNP are honest. They’re not trying to dress up what they want, which is change on these issues.”

We live in a democracy and it is not illegal to belong to the BNP, distasteful though it may seem to many, it is a matter of personal choice. Has anyone been sacked in recent years for belonging to the BNP, or any other political party?

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