Our enquiry starts with the following article in The Daily Mirror, a left-wing populist British daily newspaper with a reputation for pour journalistic standards. Here is the article, originally posted 29 November 2022 and then updated on 30 November 2022 (the pre-update original text cannot be found in the Internet Archive because insufficient time passed between the original article and the update).
Firstly we should explain who David Beckham is, because although his name is reasonably internationally famous many readers may not have heard of him or may not be aware of what he has been doing recently.
Mr Beckham was a famous British footballer playing for England's then top. Football club,.Manchester United, in the 1990's, as one of their best players..He them moved to Real Madrid, arguably Spain's top football club, where he became less noteworthy but his wife (see below) established a number of fashion and luxury brand businesses off the back of his reputation and her own as a former popular music singer, part of the British music band called 'The Spice Girls'.
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The article above makes a number of assertions which are collectively rather unusual.
David Beckham was staying at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Qatar, a five-star hotel in a suburb of Doha.
He was staying in a suite room in that hotel.
The price of the suite room was GBP20,000 a night. (Note to readers unfamiliar with five-star hotel rooms: this is extremely unlikely. It would make his room by far the most expensive in the world. There are only a handful of hotel rooms worldwide that cost even USD6,000, one quarter of his alleged Qatari hotel budget.)
It is insinuated that Victoria Beckham (nee Adams) his lawful wife, was staying with him.
It is also insinuated that Mr Beckham is a member of the LBGTQ community - in other words, a homosexual. (We make no criticism of homosexuals, who enjoy in their fight for civil liberties and equal treatment our full support, but his sexuality may be relevant; this article made it so.)
Mr Beckham was driven by a private car with blacked-out windows from a private hotel entrance garage area whenever he left the hotel.
Nonetheless he checked out of this hotel accommodation, in the middle of the World Cup, because fans discovered where he was and could harass him. (This seems highly unlikely; as users of five-star hotels of this kind will know, you cannot even get in the door of such a hotel without a reservation.)
'A source' said he was a very polite guest in the hotel.
He did not leave his hotel room much, save to watch England games and to 'see the sights' (what sites?).
His current whereabouts are totally unknown.
After playing for Manchester United and Real Madrid, he worked for a soccer club owned by the State of Qatar (like everything in Qatar, no doubt including the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, via a member of the Qatari Royal Family).
Beckham played an active role in supporting Qatar's bid to become a World Cup host.
The principal question that arises out of this extraordinarily detailed story. is, who was the principal source and why did that person give an exclusive to the Daily Mirror? We shall return to these questions presently.
However it seems unlikely it was a hotel staff member; firstly because of the peril it would put them in disclosing private details of a guest's stay in an extremely oppressive country which has no regard for freedom of speech; and secondly because.a disloyal staff member would presumably have shown the reporter the inside of the hotel room (a detail notably a sent from the article).
Now read this:
Originally a Fox Sports (i.e. Rupert Murdoch) exclusive, it reports:
Mr Beckham was appointed as Qatari Ambassador for the World Cup for ten years for the fee of GBP15 million a year. (This is quite a fee, given the presumably low intensity of the work involved - except for being present in Qatar for the entirety of the World Cup tournament and not doing a runner.)
Mr Beckham made statements reassuring the international sporting public that Qatar would respect gay rights during the 2022 World Cup. (This has turned out not to be true.)
Qatar has been enacting progressively more liberal and tolerant laws relating to homosexuality. (This is not true.)
Mr Beckham consulted with his wife before signing the GBP150 million deal. (A very strange detail to add; perhaps to indicate his wife's support for the 2022 World Cup when it was not actually existent.)
Otherwise the article is mostly generalised fawning about Qatar and Mr Beckham.
Now we should make some additional observations.
Fox News is a principal supporter in media revenues to the Doha World Cup (it had paid a lot for broadcasting rights and it is achieving strong advertising revenues in consequence); and that is presumably why they got the Exclusive they did.
Presumably Beckham is tied into a 'gaggong clause' allowing him only to speak to Fox about his role in Qatar - and even then probably only with the Qatari governmnt's permission.
Victoria Beckham (nee Adams) has not been seen in Qatar at all during the World Cup. There is no reason to believe she has been staying with Mr Beckham in this absurdly expensive hotel room or anywhere else. (The price of the hotel room appears increasingly absurd if one assumes single occupancy.)
Mr Beckham is not known to have spent more than one night in Qatar in the past. Hence he barely knows the country, despite being on their payroll.
Mr Beckham has only actually been seen at a single match in the World Cup - England v Iran.
As a guest of the State of Qatar, culturally it is highly unlikely that Mr Beckham even knew how much the hotel room cost; he certainly wasn't paying the bill nor would he even have seen it.
Hence he guessed or made it up. And, not being particularly bright, he got the figure completely wrong.
Presumably Mr Beckham is very lonely, being locked in a luxury hotel suite for several weeks on his own in circumstances such that he cannot even go to the bar (the Qataris wouldn't like an international media photo of him drinking alcohol).
Qatar being the kind of state it is, Mr Beckham's room was surely bugged to record any misdemeanours on his part (including inappropriate guests or drinking alcohol); and he may well have spotted or been alerted to this issue (typically when domestic servants arrive to change something you have run out of before you have even rung down to reception to ask them; or the elevator is always mysteriously available at your floor with a bellhop in it). This author knows all about bugged hotel rooms; in such countries, hotel rooms of this kind are invariably bugged.
The poor guy couldn't even have a wank (British slang for masturbbation). No wonder he was unhappy there.
The insinuation of homosexuality and his support for homosexual groups was preumably intended as a threat of escalation if the Qataris didn't let him go quietly, given Qatar's atrocious international standing on this issue that has caused it to be repeatedly the subject of global media criticism during the World Cup period.
We invite the reader to conclude that Mr Beckham was hating it so much in Qatar that he decided to do a runner; and to leak the story to the Daily Mirror (a Murdoch arch-rival in trashy English news); Murdoch, tight with the Kuwaiti Royal Family, not only would never have covered an anti--Qatari story about the World Cup and might even have tipped the Qataris off as to Beckham's intention to flee.
Presumably the Qataris are very unhappy. They want their money back or their man back. Were he well advised, on checking out from the hotel he would have gone straight to the airport and taken the first flight to anywhere in Europe. And he should not come back. Lawyers will bury the business to avoid scandal involving the Qatari Royal Family.
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