Fact-checking David Beckham’s Netflix documentary

Editing suggested that Beckham won the foul immediately before he scored the free kick against Greece in 2001, when it was Teddy Sheringham who was fouled

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Careful scrutiny by The Sunday Times and other media sleuths has found several such editing sleights of hand and continuity errors that have been crafted into the perfect narrative to show Beckham’s rise, fall and rise again as he became world football’s biggest star.

These tweaks illustrate just how carefully managed a PR exercise this wildly popular documentary is. And how the entire documentary industry is being reshaped by celebrities.

Beckham speaks of his pride at being called up to the England squad for the first time by manager Glenn Hoddle, one of his boyhood idols, as viewers see the national team take to the field at Wembley in September 1997 to play Moldova.

The documentary suggests that Beckham made his international debut against Moldova at Wembley in 1997, but his first cap came in Moldova the year before

Yet Beckham actually made his national team debut the previous year in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, where England won 3-0. No footage from that game is shown; the match we see is the one for which he earned his 10th cap.

Much of the series’ narrative hinges on the 1998 World Cup, when Beckham, then 23, was sent off in the round of 16 for kicking out at Argentina’s Diego Simeone. The backlash, as recorded in the film, was brutal and long-lasting, with some people hanging effigies of Beckham, who describes becoming “the most hated person in the country”.

Beckham found himself the subject of England fans’ wrath for getting sent off during a 1998 World Cup match against Argentina. He started the following season strongly, cheered by Manchester United supporters, but that is not shown. The focus of the documentary is instead on opposition supporters booing him

RUSSELL BOYCE /REUTERS

The hangover continued into the start of the following season and it was not until March, when the winger heard the home fans at Manchester United singing his name — “There’s only one David Beckham” — in a Champions League tie against Simeone’s Inter Milan, that things changed. It was, according to his team-mate Gary Neville, “the turning point for David, recognising the people of Manchester were going to look after him”.

This delayed redemption arc helps the series tell its desired story, which culminates in Manchester United winning an unprecedented trophy treble that season. Yet in truth Beckham was warmly supported by United fans from the beginning.

Though it is not shown in the series, his last-minute goal against Leicester City in the first game of that season snatched a point for his side and he was cheered to the rafters.

Some of the errors are trivial. Beckham first met Victoria Adams, his future wife, at a match he played at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium in 1997, but clips interspersed through the episode show Victoria with her Spice Girls bandmate Mel C being invited onto the pitch at Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium, where they read out the winner of a half-time raffle. The footage then cuts to Beckham scoring a goal against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge some weeks earlier.

Victoria Beckham, then Adams, and Melanie Chisholm from the Spice Girls on the pitch at Old Trafford before David scores at Stamford Bridge, below, weeks before. Beckham first met his wife in the players’ lounge at Chelsea’s stadium

HUGH ROUTLEDGE FOR THE TIMES

There are also clips of Beckham during his time at Real Madrid, sulking on the bench after being dropped. He is dressed in the Spanish team’s black away kit but when the camera cuts to his Brazilian team-mate Roberto Carlos, the players are now wearing its traditional white.

Beckham wearing the “wrong” kit while on the bench at Real Madrid. Roberto Carlos, below, was shown wearing the white home kit

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Others are more egregious. The most controversial comes when Beckham and his wife obliquely talk about his alleged affair with Rebecca Loos, the couple’s Dutch personal assistant, while he lived in Madrid in 2004. A Daily Mirror newspaper headline featured in the series reads, “An affair with Becks”, while the article’s opening line is given as: “The England captain dismissed the allegation as ludicrous.”

A scene featured doctored newspaper reports, above, of his affair with Rebecca Loos. The original is below

In reality, as was reported last weekend, the Daily Mirror had interviewed Loos’ brother, John, in April that year. The front-page headline that was featured should have read: “My sister DID have an affair with Becks.” The real opening line was: “David Beckham and his personal assistant Rebecca Loos did have an affair, her brother claimed yesterday.”

Netflix, Beckham’s management and the production company behind the series have not commented on the matter. But Beckham is hardly a disinterested interviewee — the production company is his own, Studio 99. One of the executive producers is Neville, who was best man at his wedding, and another is Nicola Howson, who has been the star’s publicist for years and is a director of Beckham Brand Holdings, which ultimately controls the couple’s commercial assets.

Although it is directed by Fisher Stevens, the highly regarded documentary film-maker and actor best known for playing the slimy PR man Hugo Baker in Succession, those looking for anything approaching unvarnished truth in series such as Beckham will be left disappointed.

Beckham is typical of the modern sports documentary, from the much-heralded Rooney on Amazon Prime to Disney+’s Welcome to Wrexham, the story of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s Hollywood takeover of the Welsh club.

In these shows, famous names are increasingly eschewing mainstream outlets to present their lives directly to fans on their own terms. The documentaries tend to offer just a morsel of gossip — the Beckhams briefly touching on the Loos incident, or the faintest shadow of shame over Rooney’s philandering — while allowing the celebrities to control their own narratives ... and pocket millions as we lap them up. They are comfortable giving us unprecedented access in such sanitised environments.

“It is lifting the skirt to show the ankle,” says Mark Borkowski, the veteran celebrity publicist. “People don’t care too much about the facts, it is more about how people feel about the story.” Shows such as The Osbournes and The Kardashians blazed a trail for the likes of Beckham and “Wagatha Christie” Coleen Rooney to follow, he adds. “There has been an evolution, and now you have got hagiographies in celluloid. It is entertainment. It is ‘faction’ — facts and fiction merged into one.”

For documentary-makers, striking the balance between having access to stars and the freedom to tell their own story can be difficult. “I think it’s probably impossible to make a film that reports properly on a celebrity or celebrities that doesn’t end up doing what they want,” says Adam Curtis, the acclaimed documentarian. “Because however thoughtful or clever or critical the film-maker is, they will always find themselves trapped by the fact that they are filling their timeline with shots of celebrities.

“In a funny way, when the celebrities make films about themselves they are probably the most ‘truthful’ thing you are going to get,” he adds. “Because it’s how the celebrity wants to be seen.”

Curtis advises viewers to read between the lines. “It’s like when someone goes on in great detail telling you about their life: they inadvertently give away stuff that they don’t see, but you do. This is why the Beckham and the Rooney films are so fascinating.”