Brown puts shirt on Beckham to lure Brazil's support 02/04/2009 |
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David Beckham's record-breaking 109th and 110th caps might have passed with little fanfare in recent days but the prime minister is aware of the former England captain's pulling power.
Gordon Brown will hand over a Beckham-signed England shirt to the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during a visit to the 2012 Olympic park in east London tomorrowon Friday. Rio de Janeiro is bidding to host the 2016 Olympic Games and Lula is seeing how London's site might provide tips for his own government-funded campaign.
Brown's focus is to woo the president of one of the world's few still-growing major economies during the G20 summit in London but there are tangible benefits for England's 2018 World Cup bid, too. Although strategists' efforts to attract world leaders to last night's England game were thwarted by the simultaneous hosting of a royal banquet (while none also wanted to appear at a comparatively frivolous football match during the crisis talks) Lula will be targeted otherwise.
Beckham has a football academy franchise on Brazilian soil and is an official ambassador for the England 2018 bid, although club commitments have prevented him from joining the party. Yet accompanying Brown around the site will be the London 2012 vice-chairman, Sir Keith Mills, who doubles as an England 2018 board member.
Brazil's sports minister and the UK ambassador to Brazil are also touring Wembley, ahead of that nation's hosting of the 2014 World Cup, alongside the England 2018 chief executive, Andy Anson, and international strategist, Jane Bateman. Hopes are high that Brazil's 2018 votes will not now automatically head to Spain-Portugal's joint bid.
(Source: Guardian.co.uk)
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