Football: Beckham shines amid China gloom on the pitch

Football superstar David Beckham began a seven day visit to China on Monday, sprinkling stardust at a charity event as the domestic game reels from its latest humiliation.

The recently retired former England captain was donating his football shirts for a children’s charity at the start of a visit in which he is expected to be joined by his glamorous wife Victoria on Sunday.

The 38-year-old announced his retirement last month after winning the French league title with Paris Saint-Germain.

After donating his PSG shirt, along with those from AC Milan, LA Galaxy, Real Madrid, Manchester United and England to a children’s charity in Beijing, he said his greatest experience came winning his 115 caps.

“The biggest achievements of my career was to have played for that number of times,” he said at the Soong Ching Ling Foundation charity event.

“To be captain for my country was very, very special.”

Beckham is hugely popular in China, where he is known as “Little Becks”.

He attracted more than 100,000 followers within two hours of launching on Monday his new account on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

Elsewhere on the hugely popular microblogging site thousands of football fans heavily criticised the national team which lost 1-5 to Thailand in a friendly game in China on Saturday — the latest in a long line of humiliations for Chinese football.

Many netizens were calling for the head of the deeply unpopular manager Jose Antonio Camacho, who was reported to have signed an $8 million-a-year contract in 2011.

Beckham is visiting as ambassador to the Chinese Super League, a role which involves him promoting the league, whose image has been battered not only by poor results by the national side, but also by corruption scandals.

The trip is the second of three that he is making to China during the season, which runs from March to November.

Beckham heads to eastern China on Tuesday, visiting Nanjing, Shanghai and Hangzhou before returning to Beijing on Sunday when he is expected to meet up with his wife at a charity auction.

Beckham, on behalf of wife “Posh Spice”, donated a Jaguar sports car at Monday’s event.