David Beckham Puts His Rep on the Line

David Beckham

David Beckham, former captain of England’s soccer team and inspiration for the 2002 rom-com “Bend It Like Beckham,” is putting his prestige on the line, agreeing to a $200M deal to become the face of the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

Qatar has been under fire for human rights abuses since it won the right to stage the World Cup in 2010.

The Arab state has brought in thousands of migrant workers to construct the infrastructure needed for the matches.

Amnesty International says thousands of them have died and their deaths have not been investigated by Qatari officials.

The non-profit wants World Cup ambassador Beckham to speak out about the sorry human rights situation in Qatar.

“Qatar’s human rights record is troubling, from the country’s longstanding mistreatment of migrant workers, to its curbs on free speech and the criminalization of same-sex relations,” Amnesty’s Sacha Deshmukh, told the BBC.

The former Manchester United star believes the first World Cup awarded to a predominantly Muslim state will inspire positive change in the region.

It’s up to Beckham to nurture that change. If he does, he will have earned his promotional money and salvaged his reputation. If fails to do so, Beckham will penalized with PR's equivalent of soccer's red card.

Facebook can run but it can’t hide. By changing the corporate name to “Meta,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg hopes he can escape into the “metaverse” and leave the myriad crises dogging the social media platform far behind.

“From now on, we’re going to be the metaverse first. Not Facebook first,” Zuckerberg said at the company’s Connect annual hardware event. That’s magical thinking, Zuck.

Meta isn’t going to defuse bombshell revelations surrounding Facebook’s failure to cut off the violent network that triggered the Jan. 6 trashing of the US Capitol, or soften the news that insiders know Instagram worsened the body image problems of young girls.

In ordering the corporate makeover, Zuckerberg only reinforces the notion that he is absolutely clueless when it comes to public relations.

The Facebook founder only has to take a gander at fellow high-tech behemoth, Google. The search engine formed the Alphabet corporate shell in 2015. Reporters barely mention Alphabet when doing stories about Google. The name Alphabet is only used in reference to its quarterly earnings.

Zuckerberg, who controls 57.7 percent of the voting power of the social media platform, is the face of Facebook.

No meta how hard he tries to escape into the virtual world, fixing Facebook’s real world problems has to be Zuckerberg’s top priority.